Shirilyn L. Waugh

Shirilyn Lamour Waugh passed over peacefully to be with her ancestors on August 20, 2024. Shirilyn, affectionately known as Toi, made her transition at Samaritan Hospice in Mount Holly, New Jersey after a courageous battle with cancer.
Toi was born on Valentine's Day in 1958 at Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield, NJ, to the late Barbara (Bobby) and James (Jim) Waugh. She was Bobby's and Jim's first child, and fittingly of the day she was born, she greeted the world with a big smile and an endless capacity to love that never waned during her 66 years of life. After Toi, two more daughters and a son followed for Bobby and Jim. Toi was a protective and loving big sister always looking for ways to make her younger siblings have fun and teaching them all that she knew about the world.
Toi attended Maxson Junior High School in Plainfield, NJ, until 1972 when the family moved to Metuchen, NJ, where she enrolled in Metuchen High School and promptly broke a color barrier by becoming the school's first Black cheerleader. She graduated from Metuchen High School in 1976. She attended Cheyney State College in Cheyney, PA, for two years before returning home to pursue a career in healthcare.
Toi was a passionate music lover with a pretty singing voice, and was known for her dancing skills. If a new dance came out, Toi was the one who learned it the fastest, did it the best, and showed her sisters, friends, and cousins how to move. Throughout her teenage years, Toi was a fixture in local talent shows either singing with her sisters and a cousin, or choreographing and performing dance routines with her friends.
Toi loved family above all else. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents Frances and Alfred Johnson on her maternal side and Grace and James Waugh on her paternal side, held deep meaning for her and her identity. She endeavored to strengthen ties with every relative in her orbit. Toi had strong loving bonds with aunts and uncles on her maternal and paternal familial sides. She had a beautiful habit of calling her siblings to remind them of someone's birthday. Often they wouldn't know who she was talking about, because it was a very distant relative. She would recite the family tree without a stutter and tell them exactly who the person was and how they were related. Family was paramount to Toi and she loved being part of a big one.
Toi held numerous jobs throughout her adult life. Her last tenure was at AT&T where she worked for seventeen years at various locations in New Jersey before retiring on disability.
Toi left Plainfield and moved to Daytona Beach, FL, in 2012 to be with her daughter, Imani, and her beloved grandchildren India, David, and Nayra. While living in Florida, she was an active member of Mount Zion AME church of Daytona Beach. She returned to New Jersey in 2022 as her illness progressed to live with her sister and to seek better care. Toi's constant companions during this time were her friends from childhood, which speaks to the authenticity of her love, its richness, and how it will endure in all of those who were lucky enough to know her.
Toi is preceded in death by her beloved mother and father.
She leaves to cherish and continue her legacy of love and happiness, her sisters, Viveca Rosser of Marlton, NJ and Charisse Waugh of Jersey City, NJ; her brother, James Waugh of Plainfield, NJ; her cousins Eboni Johnson and Omar Long of North Carolina; her precious grandchildren India, David, and Nayra; her nieces Janaay Rosser and Tiffany Heyward; nephews Keith and Maurice Rosser; a great niece, Jamiira; great nephews, Quyuir, Dominic, and Jason; and a host of aunts, an uncle, cousins, and friends.
Toi was always smiling. She will be missed.