Shirley Shear Seligman

On Dec 30, 2021, Shirley Seligman passed away at 97 with her sons and daughter-in-law holding her hands and kissing her cheeks. No one could be more loving and loved. She was wife of 67 years to Phil Seligman; mother to Mark and Rick Seligman and their wives, Moon-ja Lee and Betsy Biben-Seligman; and proud and joyful grandmother to Lauren, Lee, and Joshua. A mother figure to many, she was central to a truly unique circle of lifelong friends. She was respected and admired, too: as a social worker; as a pioneering family therapist; and, for good measure, as honorary poet laureate of Miami. Shirley was born in 1924 in Detroit to immigrants Sam Shear and Anna Wasserman. Following the traumatic loss of her father in a car accident when she was six, she and her mother moved in with a treasured aunt and cousins in Brooklyn. She spoke Yiddish with her mother, gaining a lasting love for the language. In time, they moved to an apartment across Ocean Avenue from Shirley’s beloved Prospect Park. Throughout WWII, she attended Brooklyn College, becoming the family’s first college graduate. Friends let her read eloquent letters from a homecoming GI, Phil Seligman – and she fell in love. They married in 1946, and Mark was born in ’49. The family moved to Miami, where Phil became director of the Flagler Granada Jewish Community Center, later taking up sales-related work. Rick was born in ’52. Shirley’s social and political commitments were strong: as a board member of St. Albans Daycare Center, she developed a manual for the first licensed racially integrated family day care program in Florida; during the Cuban airlift, she became an agency director of Miami’s Cuban Refugee Center; and, with Phil, she was active in the civil rights and antiwar movements. In ’65, Phil and Shirley built the lakeside home where Shirley was to live happily for the next 56 years. Shirley returned to college, receiving her MSW from Barry University in 1972; and, soon after, she became the first clinical social worker in Miami to enter solo private practice as a psychotherapist. She sustained that practice for the next six decades. At hundreds of multi-family gatherings, both Shirley and Phil loved joining in on folk songs and discussing political and social issues. They traveled often with devoted friends. They bought a ramshackle cottage in the Berkshires and cobbled it into a family retreat for future generations. Shirley began to write poetry in her eighties, culminating in publication of two collections, Feeling Out Loud and Connecting. She was thrilled with their reception. In her last days, she pronounced her own life well lived. As a Brooklyn girl who lived up to every ambition and fulfilled every dream throughout a long life full of love, she was, in the Yiddish idiom, “entitle.” Shirley’s family is grateful to the many beloved friends who gave support throughout the years and to her many aides. Special gratitude is due to Blossom, who was at her side for nine years. We welcome contributions in Shirley’s name to Florida’s ACLU. For the link to an online memorial on January 11 at 3:30pm, friends are welcome to contact [email protected].