Shirley Ann Wagner

SHIRLEY ANN WAGNER

March 24, 1937 – February 21, 2025

ELKHART, INDIANA– Shirley Ann Wagner of Elkhart passed away at the age of 87 on Friday, February 21, 2025, in Osceola, Indiana.  She was born on March 24, 1937, to Jay L. & Thelma Ruth (Grover) Edwards in Three Rivers, Michigan.

     Surviving are 2 sons (Jan Hartman of Hamilton Square, New Jersey, and Van Hartman of Elkhart, Indiana), 1 step-son (Arthur Wagner, Jr. of Elkhart, Indiana), 6 grandchildren (Dustin Hartman of Osceola, Indiana; Stephen Hartman of Brunswick, Georgia; Lacey James also of Brunswick, Georgia; Gene Andrew Hartman of Elkhart, Indiana; Matthew Hartman of Vancouver, Washington; and Abigail Hartman of Cranbury, New Jersey), and several great grandchildren. Shirley’s first great-great grandchild will arrive in October 2025. Also surviving is her brother, Norman Edwards of Three Rivers, Michigan.  She was preceded in homegoing by her parents, 2 sons (Mark Hartman and Eugene Hartman), 1 grandson (Jeffrey Sierra), and by her sister Carol Edwards.

     Her funeral will be at 2 PM, with visitation from 12 PM to 2PM, on Friday, March 14, 2025 at Zimmerman-Clouse Funeral Home (formally known as Waterman-Westbrook-Clouse Funeral Home) 1129 South Prairie Street, Elkhart, Indiana.

Shirley was born in Three Rivers, Michigan, where her family had roots. Both sides of her family had lived in Michigan for three generations before she was born. Before settling in that state, each side of the family had gradually migrated west since the early 1600s— when her Edwards family ancestors had landed at the Jamestown colonies and her Grover family ancestors at the Massachusetts Bay colonies. Both families came to America from England and Wales.  

Shirley, thoroughly a Michigan girl, lived in Three Rivers until 1958 when she met Dan Hartman of Elkhart at a roller-skating rink in Sturgis, Michigan. Dan and Shirley married in November 1958 at the First Methodist Church in Three Rivers.  The couple bought a home on Garden Boulevard in Elkhart and raised their four sons there. In December 1975, Shirley married Arthur Wagner, Sr.  The couple moved to Grady Boulevard in Elkhart soon afterward. Shirley continued living in her home on Grady Boulevard until 2024. At that time, Shirley moved to the home of her grandson Dustin Hartman and his wife Kristine Moran and their children in Osceola, Indiana. Shirley lived there in loving family care and finally in-home hospice care until she passed away.

Shirley loved gardening, baking, fudge-making, and reading. Her home was always surrounded by beautiful flowers – especially irises, peonies, lilacs, lilies, daffodils, myrtle, and daisies. Inside, her home was always filled with books, with good things to eat, and with kids growing up together.

For 30 years, from 1978 to 2007, Shirley was a private home childcare provider. Shirley was always better known to those families and to friends as “Vicki,” the nickname she adopted and preferred friends to use, and which friends and cousins from her elementary school days had given her. Dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of Elkhart kids spent part of their childhoods growing up in “Vicki’s house” in her daytime care.  Many will testify that along with many other happy and valuable experiences, they learned to swim there in Shirley’s backyard swimming pool. As the years went by, many of those kids brought their own children to Shirley’s home for childcare. In those ways, Shirley’s life was always closely connected with the lives of many, many growing families in the Elkhart area, and always will be.

Gifts in memoriam can be provided to Riley Children’s Hospital of Indianapolis, which provided special infant medical care to Shirley and Dan’s first child in 1959 and 1960. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Shirley Ann Wagner, please visit our floral store.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Shirley Ann Wagner, please visit our floral store.