Shirley Sterba (Kemmerer)

Shirley Sterba (Kemmerer), who resided for many years in Harleysville, passed away peacefully in El Cerrito, California on March 4, 2023. She was born in Mountain Top, Pennsylvania to John and Laverne Kemmerer. A coal miner’s daughter, Shirley was the third of eight children. She graduated from Nanticoke High School and was accepted into the Geisinger School of Nursing in 1952.

One of her fondest childhood memories was playing with a toy doctor’s kit, and she knew medicine would be her life’s work from a very early age. Geisinger provided Shirley with an excellent preparation for her first job as a Registered Nurse, at the Veterans Administration hospital in Philadelphia. Over the next forty years, she was employed at various times in hospitals in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Though she worked in most areas of nursing, including running a tuberculosis clinic in West Philly, her favorite field was pediatrics. She returned to school in 1970, graduating suma cum laude at Springfield College. She considered pursuing a doctorate in psychology, but instead spent the remainder of her working career in psychiatric nursing.

For nearly half of her lifetime, Shirley battled four different forms of cancer, the most severe of which took away her ability to speak in 1999. Yet right up to the end of her life, she continued to enjoy her interests and passions, which included music, card-playing, reading novels, watching football and Westerns, and keeping well-informed on news and international events. Best of all, she was able to maintain the warmth and sense of humor that did not require words to be felt and enjoyed by everyone around her.

Shirley is survived by her brother Jack Kemmerer; her children Beth Ansari, Christopher Sterba, and Melissa Sterba; her grandchildren Amber, Belal, Samantha, Lucy, and Nathan; and her ex-husband Frank Sterba. Her son Chris wishes to thank the staff of the El Cerrito Royale assisted living facility, who provided Shirley with such warm and affectionate care.