Shirley Gintel Leinwand

Shirley Gintel Leinwand, 101, passed away peacefully at home on August 14, 2025. She was the only child of Elsie Edell and Samuel Gintel, born on February 25, 1924.

She grew up mostly in New York City with her mother in a single parent household. Because of her mother’s career as a milliner that required several moves, she went to three different high schools during her teenage years (New York, NY, Chicago, IL, and Tulsa, OK). In Tulsa, Oklahoma, she graduated in 1941 with high honors. She then spent one year in college at the University of Illinois.

After college, she embarked on her career as a bookkeeper extraordinaire with stops in Miami Beach, FL, and Philadelphia, PA. While serving as a desk clerk at her uncle’s hotel in Miami Beach in 1945, she met a handsome soldier named Wallace Leinwand. The rest is history. She then moved to Philadelphia to be near her mother. She took an important job at Gimble’s Department store, where she became an executive secretary / bookkeeper for the CEO. She was referred to as his “Girl Friday”.

On February 2, 1947, Shirley and Wallace were married in Philadelphia. And from that point on, for the rest of her life, she became a “Southern Girl” in Elizabethtown. She soon became an integral part of Leinwand’s, helping Wallace transform the store into the modern facility that it is today. For 65 years, she was the bookkeeper, salesperson, and buyer, all in one.

Shirley and Wallace enjoyed making many buying trips to New York City, where they also took time to enjoy good restaurants and theaters when not working. A couple of Shirley’s passions were completing difficult crossword puzzles and watching good movies on the Turner Classic Movie Channel. Throughout her life, she accumulated many friends, who as a consensus considered her sweet, kind, and faithful.

Proceeding Shirley in death were her parents and her beloved husband Wallace. Surviving Shirley are her three children: Jeffrey, from Raleigh, Ricky and wife Eileen, from Elizabethtown, and Sharon, from Raleigh. Also surviving Shirley are four grandchildren, Brian, Justin, Michael, and Erica and 11 great-grandchildren, Samuel, Lilly, Luke, Marin, Caroline, Olivia, Max, Adam, Ethan, Penelope, and Theodore.

Funeral services will be at Bnai Israel Synagogue in Wilmington, at 2601 Chestnut Street, on Sunday, August 17 at 3:00 p.m. with a graveside services continuing at the nearby Hebrew Cemetery. Coble Funeral Home in Wilmington will handle all funeral arrangements. A visitation will also be held on August 16 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Ricky and Eileen’s home at 304 Woodland Drive in Elizabethtown.

In addition, the family would like to thank the following for their dedicated caretaking service: Nurses at Gentiva Hospice, Jackie McDowell, Marie Lampkin, and Ramona Smith.

Considerations of Tzedakah (charity) can be sent to Bnai Israel or a charity of your choosing.