Dear Friends,
My heart aches today as I'm writing to tell you we have lost our dear friend, Shirley Nicalek. Most of you who've been at our Frankenmuth shows recognize and know her.
Residents of Florida, and doing shows there in the winter, she and husband Gene came to Michigan to sell during the summer season. For 12 years Shirley and Gene "The Bug People", have been setting up their picket fence display and filling it with artfully created, colorfully painted, whimsical metal pieces. Bugs, pigs, birds, flowers, geckos, bees, all assembled from golf clubs, meat grinders, spoons, wrenches, scissors, empty propane tanks and... you name it.
Shirley was one of the hardest working women that I have known. She absolutely loved it and lived to create those pieces. She and Gene were a team, working together as a well oiled machine.
She was an expert gardener, and canner, with beautiful flowers and a large vibrant vegetable garden. She would fill a large chest freezer with bounty from their garden and take it back to Florida! Summers in Michigan she liked nothing better than to grab a cup of coffee and watch for the deer and turkeys to come out from the woods and visit in their peaceful northern paradise. Humming birds by the dozens flitted around her feeders.
After being diagnosed with cancer, in March 2020, she kept right on working, it gave her a reason to fight. Covid-19 slowed down the shows they attended but that didn't stop her from creating.
December 20,2021 she was confirmed cancer free, she had beaten it! January 21st was a devastating day as Doctors reported that an extremely aggressive cancer had developed. Shirley passed away on February, 7th she will be missed by all.
Rest in Peace, dear Shirley. ❤️
We Love you and miss you.
Doug and Leslie Needham
