Shirley Jean Scott Roth

Shirley Jean Scott Roth , nee Myers, 98, of Traverse City, peacefully passed from this life to the next on June 19, 2024 at Orchard Creek Assisted Living. Her daughters, Dona Scott Laskey and Claudia Scott Pavloff were privileged to be at her bedside.

Born on August 3, 1925 in Utica, Missouri to the late Hiram Keith Myers and Helena May (Sherman) Myers Shirley and her family moved to Detroit when she was five where her father could take advantage of the opportunities in the automobile industry.

She had a remarkable mezzo soprano voice which was trained at the Detroit Conservatory of Music. The Director, Vernelle Rohrer Peppard, remarked that Shirley had the purest High C and the greatest vocal range of any mezzo soprano she had ever taught. Although she was able to use her vocal talents in summer stock theater and in New York it was the era of World War II so she married her high school sweetheart, Donald Hill Scott (Topper), before he was shipped out to the South Pacific. As part of the Greatest Generation during the war Shirley went to work at the Chrysler plant in Highland Park where they were making tanks for the war effort.

Throughout her life Shirley was an enterprising spirit. She especially enjoyed looking for, buying, and selling real estate, always at a profit. She also acquired antiques and collectibles, having a keen eye for what was “good.” Much of her real estate activity took place in Leelanau County where her parents had moved in 1945. She and her family summered there for years.

After her husband died suddenly of a heart attack in 1975 she decided to use her time in the retail business working in the designer department of Jacobsons in Birmingham, Michigan. She met and married Roger Roth in 1982. It was a joyous marriage. They enjoyed many years in Bloomfield Hills and in Leelanau County. As a bonus she became the step-mom to Roger’s children, Lee (now deceased) and George Roger Roth Jr. (Kelly), and her step grandchildren Kyle Roth, Taylor (Roth) Wesenberg, and Parker Roth with whom she enjoyed a close relationship.

Her enthusiasm for life, her love of all things beautiful, and her absolute devotion to her family will keep her always close in the hearts of her children, grand-children and great grandchildren. She is preceded in death by her parents, her husband, Donald Hill Scott, an infant son, Daniel Scott, and her husband, George Roger Roth.

She is survived by her daughters, Dona Scott Laskey and Claudia (Michael) Scott Pavloff; Grandchildren, Robert Scott Parker (Tara), Donald Scott Parker, Cristina Scott Pavloff, Lara Helena Pavloff, Great grand children, Lily May Parker, Chase Richard Parker, Robert Brooks Parker, Zara Claudia Mendoza, and Helena Grace Pavloff and David Sherman, who she and Topper had informally adopted as a young child and who they raised as their own son.

Graveside services will be held at 1 pm on June 24, 2024 at Grand Traverse Memorial Gardens. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Cherryland Humane Society in her memory. “Always be kind to the animals”, she would say.

Kindly share thoughts and memories with her family at www.reynoldsjonkhoff .com.