In 1984, Stephanie “Steve” Shirley and her husband were preparing to purchase a small cottage in Oxfordshire, England. It was not far from Borocourt Hospital, a psychiatric institution where their autistic son Giles lived, and Shirley hoped to bring him to the cottage on weekends. This was only the beginning of Shirley's journey with autism philanthropy and advocacy.

But then they noticed ulcers in Giles’ mouth, and they learned the hospital staff knew Giles “was drinking from the toilet for years and had not thought to mention it,” Shirley wrote in her 2012 memoir concering her autism philanthropy, “Let It Go: My Extraordinary Story—From Refugee to Entrepreneur to Philanthropist.” It was then that she and her husband understood they “could no longer meekly accept the situation.”

They moved Giles into the cottage and hired a full-time caregiver. The cottage would develop into Autism at Kingwood, a supportive living community for autistic adults. (Borocourt Hospital closed in 1993.) For Shirley, who died after a brief illness on 9 August at age 91, it was the first of her philanthropic endeavors around autism—she would later found Autistica—and marked the beginning of her autism philanthropy in Britain.

“In the U.K., Steve was a major figure in driving change around autism,” says Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, regarding Shirley's commitment to autism philanthropy. Shirley funded two of the center’s projects, and she and Baron-Cohen kept in touch for years.

Her decision to build the home Giles needed and engage in autism philanthropy was also typical of her problem-solving abilities and outspoken nature. “She was always very, very curious and also willing to challenge what you were doing,” recalls James Cusack, chief executive officer of the autism philanthropy and charity organization Autistica.

Shirley's journey with autism philanthropy began when she was born Vera Buchthal on 16 September 1933 in Dortmund, Germany, to Margaret and Arnold Buchthal. Her father was Jewish, and the family fled Germany and the Holocaust, settling in Vienna. But when the Nazis arrived there, too, Vera and her older sister Renate were put on a Kindertransport train to England and were raised by foster parents Guy and Ruby Smith.

Read the full article about Stephanie “Steve” Shirley's legacy of autism philanthropy by Lauren Schneider at The Transmitter.