Shirley Reimers served on GRF Board for 19 years
IN MEMORIAM
Shirley Reimers, director on the Golden Rain Foundation (GRF) Board for more than 25 years, died Oct. 26, 2022, in Jamestown, California. Mrs. Reimers, who was six months shy of the century mark, bought her Mutual 3 home in 1975 and lived in Leisure World until April 2021.
She was one of the longest, if not the longest, serving GRF Board member in LW history, having served 19 consecutive years from 1994-2013. At age 90, she lost her seat to former GRF President Linda Stone.
In addition to serving as president, she chaired every major board committee, including Finance, Physical Property, Recreation and Communications, among others. She served on the Physical Property Committee for many years, most notably chairing the committee that built Clubhouse 6, which opened on the site of the demolished A-frame in July 2003. She was also instrumental in helping purchase the LW Library from Orange County in 1995, a year after the county declared bankruptcy.
She was a legend in her own time. She had a Mona Lisa smile, a belly laugh that would infect everyone around her and an endless affability. But at her core, she was principled, plain spoken and direct, even blunt, some would say.
She believed in the power of diversity and community participation to foster independence and security. In addition to service to the GRF, she was instrumental in the Golden Age Foundation, was a board member for the MultiCultural Council in the late 2000s and joined the Kiwanis Club in 1991 in its heyday when the international service group had a large and robust LW membership.
For 46 years, she sang in the Redeemer Lutheran Church choir and loved it. It was a lifelong love: “When I was a boy, at Bethany Lutheran Church, she did not hold back,” son Peter Reimers said. “The entire church knew where she was
