CATONSVILLE, MD - Shirley DuVall Klimek, 90, passed away on May 21, 2012 after a brief illness.
She had been living in the Charlestown Retirement Community in Catonsville, Maryland since 2006, and before that resided in Colonie, New York since 1955. She was born in 1921 to Earl and Jennie Decker in Middletown, New York. She married Edward Leopold Klimek in 1947 and they were together until his death in 1984. She was a dedicated homemaker, and enjoyed stamp collecting and needlepoint. In 1986, she met Charlie Beebe, a widower, from Castleton, New York, through the China Burma India Association, a WWII veteran's reunion group to which her husband had also belonged. Travelling companions from 1986 to 2003, Charlie and Shirley drove throughout the United States and collected visitor stamps from as many National Parks as they could.
She is survived by her four boys, Dan, Bill, John, and Paul, as well as by her older brother Bob Decker and her younger sister Doris Marshall. She is Grandmother to Tracy, Christopher, Jessica, Eli, Jim, Laura, Sarah, and Jason, and Great-Grandmother to Mallory, Ethan, Bailey, Connor, and Landon. She will be buried next to her late husband in Memory Gardens, Colonie, New York.