Shirley Nash, a lovely lady, born in Salem, Missouri to John Dewey and Gladys “Luster” Plank on April 2, 1936.
Shirley was born and raised in Salem along with two siblings, David Plank and Paul Plank, both still living in Salem.
Shirley married her high school sweetheart Jack Nash and they had four children, Ken, Ron, Tim, and Debby. She was a lady filled with spunk and a great sense of humor. Her children were targets of many practical jokes over the years. From scratching the window screen with her finger nails, scaring Ron and Tim half to death to peeling out in Ken’s candy apple red ‘66 GTO, while people cheered her on at Stephen’s parking lot. Plus, she was always up for the car to come to a halt on vacations so her brother David could back up, jump out of the car and pickup a dead bird, so he could study and draw it later. Just one more passenger on vacation - the more the merrier were her sentiments.
There was also a side of her that was deter-mined and unbreak-able. Once, while living in the country, Tim de-cided a bottle of aspirin was a bottle of candy and downed them. The kids ages were 1, 2, 4 and 5 and she had no car. Nevertheless, off she went with Debby and Tim on her hips and herding Ken and Ron down the path. They walked three miles to the nearest neighbor to get help, which happened to be Doss store. She was em-ployed at The Salem News office beginning shortly after high school and lasted until she re-tired.
She died Feb. 11, 2025 in Spearfish, Sout Dakota. She was loved so much and will be dearly missed. She has always loved and cher-ished family which has grown to many grand-children and great grandchildren.
A graveside service at Cedar Grove Cemetery is planned on Tuesday, Feb. 18, at noon.
