Shirley Harper

Shirley Harper Feb. 1935 - June 2020

Shirley Harper passed away onJune28after a 25 year long battle with dementia and Alzheimer’s. She was born and raised among 17 brothers and sisters in farm country in Butler, Pennsylvania. She was the 14th sibling and is survived by two older and two younger siblings. She was a graduate from Bulter High School and Muskingum

College. Shirley’s first job was at Joseph Horne Department store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as an assistant buyer in housewares and jewelry.

Her plan was to marry neither a doctor nor a traveling salesman, but she married a salesman once she met John Harper. They were married in Pittsburgh on Sept. 12, 1959 and drove through Route 66 to California for their honeymoon, stopping to visit the Grand Canyon on the way.

Soon after Shirley became pregnant with the couple’s first child, John D. III, and then their daughter Cynthia. Shirley became a stay-at-home mom. Twice during their childhood, the family would spend a month traveling by car on the east coast visiting the Pittsburgh area and John’s hometown in Rochester NY. The family moved to Seal Beach around 1972, where both kids would graduate from Mc-Gaugh Grade School.

Around the time the kids were in high school, college, Shirley decided to open up The Wishing Tree, a children’s clothing store on Main Street in Seal Beach. The store lasted for some time but she finally closed it when the “big box” stores commanded retail sales. After The Wishing Tree closed, she continued to work in retail sales in department stores. Shirley was always pleased that she was able to help put her son through Occidental College and her daughter through Pepperdine College, just as it opened in Malibu.

The couple moved into a condo in Huntington Beach after their children had left for college and moved to Leisure World in 2003 after Shirley could no longer climb the stairs. She and John enjoyed their time living in Leisure World and found plenty of things to do.

When Shirley was 60 she was diagnosed with dementia and five years later she suffered a stroke. The two diagnoses were the beginnings of her health struggle for 25 years.

Unfortunately her dementia evolved into Alzheimer’s and five years ago she moved into Seal Beach Health & Rehabilitation where she lived until her passing.