"To many of us today, Planned Parenthood is synonymous with abortion rights, and my mom certainly felt strongly about that. But her main passion was planned parenthood," her son said. "Shirley led the effort to educate Baltimore's young underprivileged women about family planning and birth control, fighting teen and unwanted pregnancy."
Mrs. Handlesman traveled unaccompanied through poor neighborhoods and public housing complexes knocking on doors with her trademark, "Hi, I'm Shirley Handelsman from Planned Parenthood. Can we talk about condoms and diaphragms?"
Before setting out on her journeys, family members recall Mrs. Handelsman loading her car with boxes filled with birth control literature, condoms and spermicidal foam.
"She'd tell me, 'Stevie, women need to know about this,' " he said.
"And in typical Shirley fashion, she never complained about the monotony of going door to door and never once said she was worried or afraid of being along in neighborhoods where people sometimes got hurt," he said. "And if she ever did have trouble, she never said anything about it, because she loved her work."
Mrs. Handelsman, who was associated with Planned Parenthood for more than 30 years, later became a paid staffer in the organization's Howard Street office.
In the 1980s, Mrs. Handelsman became a consumer investigator at WMAR-TV, handling calls from viewers and then investigating their complaints.
"She was never on the air, but she reported to the reporters who fronted on the air," her son said.
Described as a person who was "optimistic, gregarious and blessed with a good sense of humor," Mrs. Handelsman enjoyed giving and attending parties.
She also had been a member of the Suburban Club and a founder of the Green Valley Swim Club in Owings Mills.
A resident of Roland Park Place since 2005, Mrs. Handelsman collected glass paperweights. She also enjoyed playing golf and tennis, and traveling.
She was a former member of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation.
Services were Sunday.
Also surviving are another son, Newsday and Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Walt Handelsman of Woodbury, N.Y.; and four grandchildren. Another son, Bruce Handelsman, an artist, died in 1992 ; and a daughter, Jane Handelsman Hendrix, an audiologist, died in 1989.
