Shirley Lou Tennyson

Shirley Lou (Forward) Tennyson died at home in Vienna, Virginia, on January 23, 2015, after a long period of declining health. She was born in Denver, Colorado, on March 21, 1922, to Shelby D. and Helen Josephine (Acuff) Forward, the first of four daughters. Shirley's father was from Greeley, Colorado, where his father was the pastor of the First Baptist Church. Her mother had grown up in Pueblo, Colorado, after her family moved there in 1907 from Birmingham, Alabama, when her father was appointed supervisor of the blast furnace at the Colorado Fuel and Iron plant. In 1925, Shirley's family moved to Sheridan, Wyoming, but left shortly thereafter, in 1927, for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Shirley ("Lou'" to her family) spent the rest of her childhood. She graduated from Oliver High School in 1940 and enrolled at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh. On July 15, 1944, she married Edson Leigh Tennyson, an engineering student at Carnegie Tech about to begin his service as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Transportation Corps, and they moved to East Orange, New Jersey. He commuted to Army offices in New York City, and Shirley worked for Westinghouse at a lab in Bloomfield, New Jersey. She was unaware that the work she was doing was for the Manhattan Project until World War II ended a year later. Once they returned to Pittsburgh, finished their degrees, and started their family, Ed's job in the transit industry took them to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1949, Youngstown, Ohio in 1951, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1956. Shirley was active in her church, Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, the American Association of University Women, Girl Scouting, and especially swimming and tennis. In 1972, they relocated to central Pennsylvania when Ed was appointed Deputy Secretary of Transportation for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and in 1983 they moved to Vienna, Virginia, when he was hired by Arlington County to help complete the Metro Orange Line, and they continued to reside there after he retired. Her death was preceded by those of her sisters, Sara Jo Eberle and Grace Hartzell, and more recently by that of her husband in July 2014. She is survived by her sister Jean Frank (Thomas), of Waverly, Ohio; her daughters Lynn Tennyson (Peter Day) of Lakewood, Colorado, Connie McCarthy (Jim) of Sierra Madre, California, and Marjorie Tennyson, of Missoula, Montana; and grandchildren Nancy and Thomas Day and Nathaniel Podgajny.

A memorial service will be held at 1:00 pm on Saturday, March 21, (her 93rd birthday) at the Vienna Presbyterian Church, 124 Park Street, Vienna, Virginia. Interment will be with her husband Edson in a family plot at Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church, Liberty Corner, New Jersey.

Funeral Home:

Money & King Funeral Home

171 W. Maple Ave.

Vienna, VA

US 22180