Shirley Rae Tranin Morantz, matriarch, artist, devoted wife and community volunteer, passed away on Aug. 16 at her home at Village Shalom in Overland Park, Kansas.
She was 100 years old.
Shirley was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to Leona Kessler Tranin and Earl J. Tranin, both first-generation immigrants to the United States. A child of the Great Depression, Shirley graduated from Paseo High School in 1940. She met her future husband, Stanley A. Morantz, on the tennis courts at the Plaza in Kansas City. They married in 1942, shortly before Stanley entered the U.S. Army. Their first child, Keith, was born in 1944 while Stanley was serving as a First Lieutenant in the Philippines in World War II. Shirley and young Keith lived with her parents and her sister, who was also raising a young child with a husband away at war, until Stanley returned home.
Shirley, Stanley and Keith then lived in Army housing at the former Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant in DeSoto, Kansas, while Stanley attended law school at the University of Kansas. While raising a young child, Shirley found time to attend courses at KU. She also attended courses at the then University of Kansas City, now UMKC.
Shirley and Stanley later moved to Prairie Village, Kansas, and had three more children, Jeryl, Richard and Andy. Shirley ran a busy house while also occasionally working at the family business, The Paper Supply Company. She also began serving on local and national organizations as a volunteer and board member.
As an early advocate for mental health care, Shirley helped start and served on the board of the Johnson County Mental Health Association. She also fought for civil rights, serving as a panelist for the Panel of American Women, which fostered discussion and education among members of different races, religions and cultures during the Civil Rights Movement. She also served on the board of Fellowship House, a multiracial and multi-ethnic center, and as the executive secretary of the National Panel of American Women. She and Stanley posed as home buyers through the Fair Housing Council for prospective purchasers who might have been locked out of the real estate market by race-restrictive redline covenants.
Shirley was active in the Jewish community. She served on the board of directors at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah and also as president of the temple’s Sisterhood. She later served on the board of the Kansas City chapter of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
Shirley taught her children to believe strongly in their convictions, and she stood up for those convictions, even when it meant bucking cultural conventions. As Shirley became a grandmother, she instilled an appreciation of the arts, cultural diversity and the importance of family in her seven grandchildren and later in her great-grandchildren.
Following Stanley’s retirement from The Paper Supply Company in 1980, Shirley and he enjoyed traveling, venturing to Costa Rica, Kenya, Israel, Italy, London, Japan and the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Shirley also organized extended family reunions and vacations, usually tied to Stanley’s birthday on the Fourth of July.
Also following Stanley’s retirement, Shirley launched a career in wood sculpting. She converted half of the family home’s basement into a studio where she chiseled, sanded and polished away countless days listening to classical music and creating fine art pieces that would adorn her home and later the homes of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She also created pieces on commission and sculpted and donated yadayim (pointers) to B’nai Jehudah for Torah readings. As her hands weakened in her later years, and as Stanley passed away in 2010, Shirley shifted to ceramics.
Shirley is preceded in death by Stanley; her son Richard Morantz; her sister Marian Shultz; and her brother Donald Tranin.
She is survived by her children Keith Morantz (Susie) of Overland Park, Jeryl Silverman (Peter Silverman) of Prairie Village and Andy Morantz (Sita) of Minneapolis, Minnesota; her grandchildren, David Morantz (Carrie), Matt Silverman (Kirsty Davis), Amy Scherer (Jason), Tim Silverman (Anne), Rose Morantz, Sam Morantz (Aimee) and Anthony Morantz; and her great-grandchildren Stanley T. Morantz, Lucille Morantz, Rebecca Morantz, Skyla Scherer and Shaylyn Scherer.
Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 25, at Louis Memorial Chapel (6830 Troost Ave., Kansas City, MO 64131), with burial to follow at Rose Hill Cemetery, where Shirley will be laid to rest next to Stanley.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to the Earl J. and Leona K. Tranin Special Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City, (5801 W. 115th St., Suite 104, Overland Park, KS 66211) c/o Beatrice Fine.
