Shirley Mishara

Retired Newton fifth and sixth grade teacher, passed away peacefully at home, at age 91, on January 13, 2017. Valedictorian Lynn English High School 1942, B.A. with Honors Radcliffe College 1946, M.Ed. Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a teacher in Newton for 25 years. Beloved wife of 52 years to the late Jordan H. Mishara and devoted mother of Eric Mishara and wife Helene, Joan Mishara Mills and husband Dennis, and Judith Mishara Sherman and husband Fred.  She is also survived by her grandchildren, great grandchildren, family, and friends.

Shirley’s earliest memories were of growing up near Nahant Beach, where she learned to swim and developed a lifelong love of the ocean.

In 1950, after college graduation and marriage, she took her first airplane flight to remote Jeremie, Haiti.  In Haiti, her husband, an engineer, helped to build the area’s first suspension bridge, while Shirley studied French.  After a year, they returned to Boston and started a family.

Shirley had a thirst for knowledge and was a teacher by calling; first to her own children, and later to her students.  Teaching was “exhausting” and teachers faced “too much blame” for educational “problems,” but the reward was connecting with “inspired” students.

In retirement, she devoted herself to family and friends, volunteered to teach foreign students English, traveled, gardened, played Bridge, did crossword puzzles, skied into her seventies, enjoyed deep water aerobics, read books passionately, and was an avid attendee at the theater, opera, local museums, lectures and movies.

Funeral services at the chapel at Sharon Memorial Park, 40 Dedham St., Sharon, on Monday, January 16, 2017 at 12 Noon. Mourners welcome afterward at the family home and then the next day between 11 Am until 2 PM.  Memorial gifts may be made to the Newton Free Library.