Shirley Faye Galbraith

Shirley Faye Galbraith (née Mason) passed away peacefully at her St. Clair Shores home on the morning of Tuesday, September 29. She was 96 years old. 

Born in Sarnia, Ontario, on March 25, 1930, to parents Eldon and Hellen Mason, Shirley grew up on the family farm near Wyoming, Ontario. Her sister Joyce would be born two years later. 

Known for a sweet disposition, never overt or overbearing, Shirley was a cheerleader with a quiet strength that would encourage each person that called or came to her. She had a steadfast hope and belief in each member of her family, both near and far, and would encourage each to find what she already saw in them. A true matriarch. 

Shirley’s farmgirl days were remembered fondly and often, and throughout the decades to come. She would garden much of her life, carrying on her talent for tending the vegetables and flowers, be it as a young girl, housewife, or empty nester. But her father’s hay fever would force Eldon to sacrifice his own boyhood dream and sell the family farm, prompting a move to town where Shirley would attend high school in Wyoming. 

The Masons moved to Royal Oak, Michigan, in April 1947, and Shirley’s brother, Robert Eugene, was born later that August. 

Shirley met her future husband through mutual friends, marrying Donald Malcolm Galbraith on May 15, 1954, in Angola, Indiana. The young couple would go out dancing at the great ballrooms and dancehalls of the day, dancing to jazz legend Roy Eldridge at Detroit’s Graystone Ballroom one weekend and at a local barn dance the next. 

After moving to Troy and starting a family, the Galbraiths would then settle back in Royal Oak and raise their five children. 

Her love of travel took shape in the early 1950s. As a young woman, Shirley and her friends Juanita and Joyce took to the highway and traveled along Route 66, visiting Los Angeles and Tijuana, Mexico, before winding their way back home. Shirley always preferred driving to flying, and would load the family station wagon with children and supplies as she and Don visited the campgrounds of Michigan, Ontario, and beyond. 

An RV made from a 1960s-era school bus would serve the family in the 1970s, eventually making its way to Cedar Bay Campground in Lambton Shores, Ontario. It’s there where Don and Shirley’s father Eldon parked the bus and built a one room addition, permanently parking the bus on the shores of Lake Huron. That old school bus would eventually become known as The Bus, becoming the summer destination for several generations of Galbraiths and one of their favorite places of all time. 

Shirley was a voracious reader, her bookshelves teeming with dog-eared crime and mystery novels. She read just about every single one of them, and the next batch of unread books couldn’t come fast enough. 

Her handmade quilts remain cherished mementoes among each of her children and grandchildren. 

Shirley was preceded in death by her husband Donald (2019), and survived by their children Virginia Lee (Allen) Brown, James Douglas Galbraith, David Kirk (Sheryl) Galbraith, Michael Carl (Katherine) Galbraith, and Lori Gayle (Tim Homa) Greene. She is also survived by her sister Joyce, 9 grandchildren, 2 step grandchildren, 9 great grandchildren, 6 step great grandchildren, 4 great great grandchildren, and 2 step great great grandchildren. 

Shirley was preceded in death by her parents Eldon and Hellen Mason, brother Robert Mason, granddaughters Melissa and Jamie Shepard, grandson Steve Greene, and great granddaughter Stephanie Freeman. 

Shirley Faye was a thoughtful, accommodating, and proudly Canadian woman; a farmgirl in the city who gets to go home.