Shirley Cohen, one of the first women to serve on the board of directors of Jewish Hospital (now Barnes-Jewish), died in her sleep of peripheral vascular disease at the Gatesworth Retirement Center in University City, on Saturday, March 21, family members said. She was 89 and a longtime leader in numerous organizations and causes. She had lived in Creve Coeur, Clayton and in Marco Island, Florida.

During decades of volunteering for a host of causes, Mrs. Cohen was president of the Jewish Hospital Auxiliary and a tireless advocate for nursing education. She was instrumental in the expansion of the Jewish Hospital School of Nursing into a full-fledged college in 1989.

A founding member of the board of directors of the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation, she chaired the board of the Jewish Hospital College of Nursing, now known as the Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. At the college’s first commencement ceremony in 1994, Mrs. Cohen received an honorary bachelor of science degree.

Mrs. Cohen’s many other activities and honors include co-chairing the Reach for Recovery program for breast cancer patients, and the Camelot TV auction for the St. Louis Arts and Education Council. She also helped bring hospice and palliative care to St. Louis. In recognition of her many philanthropic activities, she was honored in 1972 as one of the city’s Women of Achievement.

Her calling card throughout the decades of volunteer work was homemade brownies, according to her four sons.

“Anyone who knew her remembers the brownies, notable for their forceful flavor and moist texture that she attributed to unsweetened chocolate and cream of tartar,” said Tom Cohen, her youngest. “She was the first board member at Jewish Hospital to bring homemade brownies to a board meeting.” 

 Those brownies went wherever she did — to meetings, parties, bereavement visits or any occasion needing a dessert or sweet snack. They also traveled the world as care packages to her boys at summer camps or in college, military service or living abroad. Her son Richard A. Cohen, said,  “To borrow a phrase from ‘Seinfeld,’ those brownies were spectacular.”

Mrs. Cohen was born Shirley Muriel Weinstein in New York on Aug. 9, 1925. The daughter of Louis and Ethyle Minkoff Weinstein, she moved to St. Louis with her family when she was 10, much against her wishes, according to son Tom. 

“She often told of crying in the car the entire trip, worrying she had left the civilized world for a wild frontier,” he said.

Mrs. Cohen attended University City High School and Washington University. She was a volunteer at Jewish Hospital and at Union Station, where she took care of babies as soldiers bid farewell to their wives during World War II.

In 1945, she married Stanley Cohen, the future president and CEO of family-owned Central Hardware.

“She juggled her life as a homemaker with increasing volunteer work that became almost full-time participation for many years,” Tom said.

Through it all, she always found time for cooking, baking and entertaining. She mixed batches of brownies while cradling a phone on one shoulder, family members said. Her dinner parties ranged from elegant affairs with polished silver to a meal served in shoeboxes to celebrate Central Hardware’s purchase by Interco Inc. in 1966.

Mrs. Cohen enjoyed traveling and spending time with family and friends at the condominium she and her husband owned on Marco Island, Fla. Her travels took her to Israel, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

Stanley Cohen died in 1991. Mrs. Cohen is survived by her sons and daughters-in-law: James H. Cohen (Jill M.), Richard A. Cohen (Sharon S.) and Kenneth B. Cohen (Susan A.) of St. Louis, and Thomas S. Cohen and Lesley P. Wroughton of Washington, D.C., and her brother, Eugene R. Weinstein of Little Rock, Ark.; nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Donations can be made to the Shirley W. Cohen Scholarship Endowment Fund at the Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital, 1001 Highlands Plaza Drive West, Suite 140, St. Louis, Mo. 63110 or [email protected]. For more information, go to barnesjewish.org/online-giving-form.

 A memorial service will take place at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 30, at Temple Emanuel, 12166 Conway Road, followed by a reception. Brownies will be served.