Shirley (Sutton) Lamson was born on February 20, 1930 in Cincinnati, Ohio and was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In her youth Shirley was involved in a variety of school and athletic activities including swimming, basketball, and cheerleading, as well as being an outstanding student. Although college was a lifelong dream, she was unable to attend immediately following graduation and worked for Pennsylvania Bell Telephone where she was responsible for customer relations and service. During this time, she married her first husband, Clark Sutton, and enjoyed 37 years of marriage prior to his passing in 1990. In addition to raising three children - Debbie, Karen, and John - she was active in a wide range of church and community volunteer work including the League of Women Voters of Upper St. Clair, the Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church, and Project Pacesetter of Allegheny County. During her tenure at The League of Women Voters, Shirley worked on county wide projects including a study of Allegheny County mass and rapid transit, and support of the Equal Rights Amendment. As Executive Director of Project Pacesetter, a county-wide energy education program in the Pittsburgh area, she worked with community, business, and political leaders to educate and research energy alternatives. After leaving Pittsburgh, she and her husband lived in Washington, D.C. where she worked for Americans for Energy Independence. Following Washington, Shirley and Clark lived in Chicago where she served ten years as the Executive Director of a new nonprofit, Contact Chicago, a twenty-four hour telephone crisis hotline, which she led from its inception to an organization with four full time staff and over 100 volunteers. She worked with the United Way of Chicago and was instrumental in organizing volunteers to found Central City Housing Ventures, an interfaith program dedicated to providing housing for low-income people in the Chicago area.
Following the passing of her husband Clark, Shirley moved to Cape Cod in 1992 and purchased the Isaiah Jones Homestead in historic Sandwich Village. Not surprisingly, she became active in Sandwich and the Cape as a founding member and president of the Upper Cape Homeless Council, as well as volunteering with the Sandwich Food Pantry. In May 2000 she attended the Million Mom March in Washington DC. She was active in her home church, First Church Sandwich UCC, serving on outreach and capital campaign committees including working to receive Community Preservation funds to renovate the church steeple. She continued to advocate for those affected by domestic violence, including the 1998 initiative Shalom in the Home through the Cape Cod Council of Churches. She participated in staffing overnight shelters for the homeless held at the Quaker Meeting House in Sandwich with her friend Virginia Lewis. Shirley loved music and enjoyed singing in the Cape Cod Chorale.
In 1995 she was blessed to have met and married Fred (Bud) Lamson, and was welcomed into his family by his children and grandchildren. During their twenty years together, Shirley and Bud continued to run the bed and breakfast and traveled with friends to Russia, Greece, Scotland, Ireland, and England. They also went to Louisiana to aid in clean-up work following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In 2003, at 73, Shirley achieved her goal of receiving a Bachelors of Arts degree from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, graduating summa cum laude.
She will be greatly missed by her family, friends, and the countless people she served in the communities in which she lived.
Shirley Lamson is survived by her husband, Fred Lamson, her sister, Barbara and her husband Al Riedl, as well as Shirley and Bud’s children Deborah and Ed Blanchard, Karen Sutton and Gary Van Voorhis, John and Sonja Sutton, Stephen and Tina Lamson, Janis and Dick Knox, Dottie and Larry Whittier, Diane Lamson Aromando, Carolyn Lamson, Sandra Lamson Fay, Michael Lamson and his finance Lizette Austin, and their 21 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held Sunday, March 22nd, at 2:00 PM at First Church Sandwich, UCC, 136 Main Street, Sandwich, MA.
In lieu of flowers the family requests contributions to a charity of your choice.