Shirley L. Spitzer

Shirley L. Spitzer, known to her family simply as Mom and to her community as a cheerful volunteer and painter, died on Thursday, October 22, 2026, in Versailles, Ohio, at the age of 86. She was born in 1940 in the small village of Osgood, Ohio, to Norbert Wayne Apple and Louise (Lindsey) Apple, and she spent her entire life rooted in the Darke County farming communities of west central Ohio, with years away following her husband's military postings.

As a teenager Shirley worked packing eggs at Weaver Brothers in Versailles, and she filled her free hours with bowling, roller skating and softball. On July 11, 1960, she married Ronald Keith Spitzer, and the two built a marriage that lasted more than sixty years, moving at times to places including Oklahoma and Illinois to support Ronald's military career before returning home to Ohio. She was, by every account left behind by those who knew her, proud of her husband's service and steady in her support of it, and the couple later enjoyed golfing together, a pastime that produced one of her proudest personal moments, a hole in one at Stillwater Valley Golf Club.

Shirley was not a public figure in the conventional sense. She did not hold elected office, run a company, or appear in the news for her work. Her significance was local and personal, built through decades of quiet civic and church involvement. She sang in her church choir, served as a youth leader, and led a Girl Scout troop. She gardened with enough skill and dedication to win Garden of the Month recognition in three different places she called home, Oklahoma, Illinois and Versailles. She also painted, a pursuit her family described as a genuine passion rather than a casual hobby.

Above all, those who remember Shirley describe a woman defined by family. She raised three children, Tom, Lynne and Jim, and remained closely involved in the lives of her nine grandchildren and six great grandchildren as they grew. Family members have said she loved staying involved in her children's, grandchildren's and great grandchildren's lives, a thread that runs through every tribute written about her since her death.

Ronald Spitzer, her husband of sixty one years, died on August 16, 2021, five years before her. She was also preceded in death by her parents and by three brothers, Tom, Harold and William Apple. Shirley died on October 22, 2026, in Versailles. No cause of death has been made public, and her obituary, published through Bailey Zechar Funeral Home, focused on her life rather than the circumstances of her passing. A visitation was held on October 27, 2026, from 10 a.m. to noon, followed by a funeral service that day at noon at Bailey Zechar Funeral Home in Versailles, Ohio.