Shirley Ann Schmidt

Shirley Ann Schmidt

After a wonderful life, full of love and adventure, Shirley Ann nee

Tepper passed peacefully away at home on May 26, 2024, after a short

battle with pancreatic cancer with Utz, her husband of 40 years, at her

side. Born on January 1, 1941, in Detroit, at age 83, she still was full of

energy with big plans for the museum in Port Sanilac, her second home

since retirement 21 years ago. At that point we had traded the hectic

life of the automobile industry for the peace in our new house at Lake

Huron in Palms. She had returned to Palms, the birthplace of her

mother, Lucille Zdrojewski and all the relations.

A plate on her car said: Well behaved women rarely make history,

Shirley did!

At TRW seatbelt Shirley was in her element as assistant to a bunch of

young engineers, being as well their mother figure. One adventure

stands out, today unthinkable: She was sent first class to Frankfurt,

Germany, with immediate return to bring back a box with

pretensioners for next day’s car crash test. I, Utz fell almost out of my

shoes when she came out of customs with a box under her arm with

explosive labels on all sides.

In various functions at the museum’s board and responsibility of

the mansion, she was very instrumental in the growth to now 16

buildings in the museum’s village, plus the barn theater and a WWII

Pullman troop kitchen car. Shirley established the archives, recently

named in her honor, with a matriculate listing and storage of all the

artifacts.

She leaves a grieving family, relations, friends, the museum’s team, neighbors, and many whose life she touched on both sides of the Atlantic. Shirley is survived in the USA by her husband Utz Schmidt, her

brother Bill Tepper and his family, our children Doug and wife Buffy

Subjeck, their daughter Carrie Amodei, spunky great-granddaughter

Emily and daughter Becky Smyth and their husbands as well as

daughter Cindy Subjeck. In Germany are grieving our children Silke

Gesslein, her children Benjamin his wife Babsi, our great-grandchildren

Pauline and Leopold, son Lothar, his wife Anna, our great-grandson

David plus an expected new arrival and Silke’s son Daniel with Isabella.

It continues with our son Lars Schmidt, Agnes, the mother of Alice, the

Dr. Anna Schmidt since 5 days ago and Amelie our sweetest

granddaughter and our son Nils. Shirley loved deeply all of them and

the love was returned. Life is hard without Shirley. Utz

At a later point you will be informed about the details of a Celebration

of Life at the museum in Port Sanilac.