Shirley Smith Bailey

Shirley Smith Bailey passed peacefully and on her own terms into the arms of the Lord, at her home, in Winston-Salem, with her loving husband Jim close by.

Shirley was born August 4, 1948, in Forest City, NC, to Oliver Alexander Smith and Ida Hettie Leona Hill Smith. Early in life, she learned a love for creative and handmade arts from her family, developing a lifelong interest in cooking, gardening, and especially sewing. She learned quilting and machine sewing from her grandmother, Bertie Hill. After the passing of her mother at age 12, Shirley developed important traits early in life that would make her so unique and special to so many. She immediately took on many of the responsibilities of caring for her dear 2-year-old and 7-year-old siblings and later became part of a larger family as the big sister to a new beloved stepsister and half-brother.

After graduating from East Rutherford High School in 1966 with superb grades, a track career as a hurdler, and with an award as East’s best shirt ironer, Shirley became the first member of her family to earn a college degree. In 1970, she graduated from Limestone College with a bachelor's degree in English. After college she moved to the Charlotte area and taught lucky fourth grade students at Wingate Elementary.

In 1974, Shirley met her lifelong love and best friend, James Harley Bailey. Always a force of nature, Shirley married Jim within a few months, and their family started immediately as they welcomed their children, Harley and Emily, in 1975 and 1977. Shirley loved her children intensely, and they loved her in the same way.

She devoted this next chapter of her life to her young family. Shirley built a creative, laughter-filled, caring, sometimes demanding, always loving home for her children. She was able to continue to use her gift for her teaching with her family, imparting a lifelong love for reading, a passion for creativity, and her love of proper grammar to a somewhat obstinate set of students in her children and husband.

Her creativity suffused her house as she created fabulous meals, threw parties for friends and family, and continued to sew handmade creations including quilts, garments, cross stitch, costumes, and christening gowns. During this time, she bought her first Bernina sewing machine, an event that would impact her later life significantly. She was also active in the community, becoming PTA president, leading the church high school youth group, occasionally working in local sewing shops, and volunteering as an audiology testing technician to help with early identification of children’s hearing loss.

After her children left home, Shirley jumped fearlessly into her next endeavor. She began managing Bernina sewing machine shops in Charlotte, leading to an opportunity in 2002 when she opened, co-owned, and directly managed two Bernina sewing stores in Boone and Winston-Salem: Sew Original. Of course Shirley poured all of her passion into the enterprise, using the traits honed over her life to build a true community in and around her stores, as her brilliance as a teacher, her creativity, leadership abilities, intelligence, sense of humor, love of people, and curiosity all touched the people she encountered every day.

In addition to leading Sew Original, Shirley focused the last 20 years of her life on her grandchildren. As two grandsons and a granddaughter arrived between 2007 and 2015, Bertie, as she was known to them, had a new generation of lives to touch. She adored her grandchildren and was intimately engaged in their lives, looking after them, knitting and sewing them gifts, attending their performances, teaching them her lifetime of skills, and even continuing to proofread their papers, an English teacher until the end.

Shirley will be remembered as a cherished wife, mom, Bertie, aunt, close friend, and leader. We will all miss her quick laugh, her ability to listen, her creativity, her intelligence, and her curiosity. Life was always exhilarating around Shirley Bailey, and we will remember her around us every day in our quilts, our sense of right and wrong, our still not quite perfect grammar, and our memories.

In addition to her parents, Shirley was preceded in death by her sister, Debra Jean Smith Jenkins; and her brother, Charles Smith.

Left to cherish her memory are her husband, Jim; children, Harley Bailey, and Emily Fisher (Tim); along with grandchildren Oliver, William, and Mirabelle Fisher. She will also be missed by her brother, Dennis Smith; half-sister, Deborah Foster; sisters-in-law, Kathy Davidson, and Susan DiPuppo; and many beloved nieces and nephews.

A celebration of life will be held from 4-6 PM Monday, May 18, 2026, at Sew Original in Winston-Salem.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to Ryan’s Case for Smiles https://caseforsmiles.org/ or to Project Buddy Bear of North Carolina https://www.projectbuddybearsnc.org/