Shirley Lakel

Mrs. Shirley (Pearl) Lakel of Frederick MD, died December 20, 2023, at Edenton Retirement Community after a long illness. She had lived on Lee Place for 68 years before moving to Edenton in 2020. Born in Harrisburg, PA, on July 7, 1927, she was the daughter of the late Edward Ray and Edith (Kidd) Pearl, and the wife of the late Charles F. Lakel Jr.. They were married for 57 years before his death in 2003. After graduating from Frederick High School in 1944, Shirley went to work as a secretary for the Frederick Trading Company. She left there in 1948 to raise her family and re-entered the work force in 1961 when she began working as a secretary at Frederick High School. She really enjoyed the students there, knowing all their names and remembering them long after they graduated. In 1970 she took a job as an administrative assistant with the Frederick County Board of Education, retiring in 1987. Over the years she was active in the Calvary Methodist Church, the Junior Women’s Club and the North Frederick Elementary School PTA and the Arcade Duckpin Bowling church leagues. She won several prizes for various food and craft entries at the the Great Frederick Fair and enjoyed needlepoint, crocheting, crafts, reading and watching backyard birds (especially hummingbirds) and was famous for her Congo cookies and Snickerdoodles. She and her husband Charlie also traveled to various places around the U.S. and to Fiji, New Zealand and Tahiti. She was predeceased by brothers Richard C. Molesworth and John W. Molesworth III and sisters Joyce (Molesworth) Chasin, Minnie Earl (Molesworth) Hargett and Beverly (Molesworth) Smith, and is survived by a daughter, Teena Broadrup and husband Fred of Frederick, a son, Charles Lakel and wife Lisa of Conifer, CO, two grandchildren, Ward Broadrup of Brunswick and Nicole Lakel of Bellingham, WA, and a great- granddaughter, Lila Broadrup of Brunswick. Graveside services will be sometime in the spring at a date to be determined later. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Grand Central Station, PO Box 4777, New York, New York, 10163.