Obituary of Shirley W. Abrahams

Shirley Whendel Bryan Abrahams was born on April 16, 1937. She made her transition on March 18, 2015. She was 77 years old. She passed away peacefully in her sleep after a long illness. Shirley was born to Azariah and Alice Bryan in Kensington, Jamaica. As a young woman she studied music and loved to play the organ. Shirley and her siblings were raised in the Methodist church and were members of the choir. Sometimes Shirley would take on the role of organist. She also enjoyed reading and always had a book with her. Shirley studied accounting and secretarial studies. She worked for a Loan Bank and did court reporting for the courthouse in Kingston. Shirley later came to the United States to join the rest of her family and to start her own family with Randolph Abrahams whom she married in 1968. With her secretarial skills and accounting background Shirley was easily employable, first with the Jewish Organization and later with Citibank. She remained with Citibank from where she retired after thirty prosperous years. She was a loyal, knowledgeable and dependable employee who was loved by everyone that had the pleasure of doing business with her, especially her customers from the Middle East. She had an excellent memory for numbers and could remember all of her clients’ account numbers. This was just one of the many things that extremely impressed them. Shirley loved to travel, and did so after her retirement, to Greece, London and other Islands in the Caribbean. Her greatest joy was in taking care of her home and her family. She was a loving, caring wife, mother, daughter, sister, grandmother and friend. She never had a negative word to say about anyone. She was always concerned about how everyone was doing, making phone calls and offering advice, some heeded and some not. Her home was the place for a large gathering every Christmas, where family and friends feasted for hours on delicious food prepared by her and other members of the family. Everyone had a wonderful time, and returned year after year, with the crowd progressively growing larger and larger. All attendees will miss those wonderful Christmas dinners. Shirley was an avid television watcher, especially Sci Fi. Star Trek was one of her favorite programs and she would watch with rapt attention and squeal when something excited and delighted her. Shirley is survived by her husband Randolph “Peter” Abrahams; daughters, Denise, Annette, Althea and Andrea; grandchildren, Gereen, Alice, Erica, Justin, Carlos and Jasmine; great grandchildren, Skyla-Fe, Zyaire, Zaniyah, Zaharah and Zendayah; Siblings, Lottie, Hewitt “Jimmy” and Barbara, and a host of nieces, nephews, and friends. Please see SERVICE INFORMATION