Sara Sally Shirley Musolf

1920 - 2019

Sara "Sally" Shirley Musolf died on May 2, 2019, at Sacred Journey Hospice, in McDonough, Ga. She was born on July 27, 1920, in Johnson City, Tenn., but grew up and lived most of her adult life in Erie, Pa. She was the fourth child of Maude and Frank Shirley in a family of eight children.

She married the love of her life, James Miller Musolf on June 3, 1950. Jim and Sally were married for 62 amazing years before Jim passed in 2012.

Sally was a modern woman of her time. She attended and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and was a member of the first class pinned as nurses in 1943. She enrolled in the Navy and was stationed in San Diego, where she worked with Dr. Benjamin Spock in setting up a Navy hospital for service members returning from the Pacific theater of World War II. After the war, Sally worked as a hospital nurse and an industrial nurse. While raising her daughters, she supported Jim in his service station business by maintaining the business finances. When the youngest daughter could care for herself, she returned to work outside the home as a school nurse. Sally loved singing in a choir, gardening, sewing, arts and crafts, traveling, and entertaining family and friends. She was quite a wit, which she used with great effect until she died.

Sally is survived by her four daughters: Barbara, Patricia and Wendy Musolf, and Beverly LoPinto, three grandchildren: Jeremy, Ethan, and Francesca, and two great-grandchildren: Gabriella and Isabelle.

Interment of both Jim and Sally will take place at the Western North Carolina Veterans Cemetery in Blackrock, N.C.

Sign the Guestbook at www.GoErie.com/obits.