The family moved to San Francisco where they spent the next several years in the Napa Valley area. They later returned to Ramah, where they worked together at the family dairy. Shirley loved the country life. She fondly remembers playing taps on her trumpet while riding her horse bareback. Shirley graduated from Ramah high school and married her high school sweetheart, Thaddeus Joseph Englert. They had four children, two sets of twins, Cathy and Mark, and Lori and Lois. Shirley and Thad raised their family in multiple towns, including Ramah, CO, Ames, IA and the western slope of Colorado as Thad continued his education and Shirley pursued her realtor’s license. Shirley was passionate about flower gardening, a skill nurtured and developed by her mother and grandmother. She enjoyed fishing, cross stitch, reading, golfing and in her words would like to have been able to paint. Others think she was a true artist. Shirley was an avid arrow head hunter and spent many pleasurable hours searching for “sign.” She later married Clark Wix. They were restaurateurs, enjoyed traveling the world together, and played a mean hand of gin. In later life, they became snowbirds, spending summers in their beloved White River valley home and winters in warmer climates including Southern Utah, California, and especially, Florence, Arizona. She never met a challenge she wouldn’t take on, a rock she couldn’t move or a project that was too big. Shirley always said her children and their families were the joy of her life and she felt very blessed. Her children in turn, knew her as the most loving, compassionate, accepting and giving mother.
Shirley was preceded in death by her husband Clark, her parents George and Myrtle, and her brother Leonard. She is survived by her brothers Lionel (Yvonne) Robertson, Lyle Robertson, her children, Cathy (Brit) Smith, Mark (Janine) Englert, Lori (William) Robinson, Lois (Greg) Griffin, and her grandchildren, Jessi (Bo) Hodgman, Nattie (Craig) Ebert, Marc Schultz Smith, Cody and Kaitlyn Englert, Patrick and Sarah Griffin, and great-grandchildren Scarlett and Stella Hodgman.
Funeral services for Shirley are scheduled at the Meeker Holy Family Catholic Church at 11 A.M. on Tuesday, May 31.
The family would like to thank Father Jason and the Alter and Rosary Women of Holy Family Parish, Applegate Hospice, and Serenity Funeral Home of St. George, Utah.
