Dolores Jean Houser

In Memory of Dolores Houser

She was born Dolores Jean Lunau (pronounced "lu'-no") in Denver, Colorado on November 18, 1937. She was the only child of Galdys and Walter Lunau. Her parents divorced when she was a child, but they also worked a lot and she spent a lot of time in the company of her maternal grandmother, whom she called Grandma Boyce.

She met her future husband, William Dean Houser, when they both were in elementary school. William, known as Bill, was a year older and he used to throw rocks at her when she was on the way to school. Obviously, that changed. Bill, the youngest in a large family, dropped out of high school at age 16 and joined the navy. He asked Dolores to marry him during his Navy service.

Bill and Dolores had three children in rapid succession over a three year period: Linda Lee, Peggy Lou, and Stephen Leslie. Dolores said she knew a family where they all had the same initials, and while she thought that might be too much, she decided her children should have the same last two initials.

Dolores suffered with a number of severe health problems her entire life. She lost all her teeth as a child and had false teeth at an early age. In her twenties, she was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes, a condition that she lived with and managed with insulin shots several times a day all her adult life.

Dolores didn't much care for the unusual spelling of her name, d-o-l-o-r-e-s. And she didn't like the meaning of her name, which is "Our lady of sorrows." So about 20 years ago she decided to go by the nickname "Dee."

Bill and Dee purchased a house in Englewood, Colorado for their growing family and Dee worked to help supplement the family income. One of her early jobs was a telephone operator in Denver in the early 1960's. She told stories about how people from New York would assume Denver was still the old West and they would ask her to "holler out the window for the sheriff." She also worked as a bookkeeper at an auto parts store and did bookkeeping and secretarial work for a dentist. She also did the work on the family finances.

Bill and Dee lived in the same house in Englewood for about 20 years. They became actively involved in a fledgling church in Denver called Denver Baptist Temple. They'd both been raised Baptist and decided to return to their faith as they raised their family. As they got more involved in the church and the church grew, Dee became church secretary and Bill served on the deacon board and eventually served as head deacon. When the church opened a school they sent their high school age children there. Eventually, they sold their house in Englewood and purchased a house near the church property at the corner of Yale and Sheridan in Denver.

Dee and Bill worked together on a number of projects over the years and Dee spent most of her time supporting Bill in his goals. For example, Bill found out pretty quickly that his lack of a high school diploma was hurting him in the work world. So he went to night school to get his GED and later trained as a machinist. Bill knew how to do the assigned problems and he could get the right answers, but he found it difficult to write out his work in a way that would get him credit from his instructors. So Dee helped him with his homework by writing out the assignments he'd done in his head as he explained them to her. That way he got credit for the homework and passed the courses.

After a leadership change at Denver Baptist Temple, Bill and Dee started attending South Sheridan Baptist Church under the direction of Pastor Ed Nelson. When Ed Nelson moved to Tucson, Arizona, they looked into moving as well. When Bill retired, he and Dee found a townhouse outside of Tucson on the fifth hole of a small golf course and became part of the community there. Bill served on the Home Owner's Association board and Dee became the HOA bookkeeper. They became active members of Ed Nelson's church, Bethel Baptist, and remained active there for the twenty years they were in Tucson, even after Pastor Nelson moved away from the city.

Bill and Dee were active with the Gideon's, the Republican Party, and the VFW both when they lived in Denver and in Tucson.

Dee loved crafts that involved hand work, such as sewing and knitting. She also took up crochet and tatting and taught her daughters some of her skills. She gave up her craft work later in life, but just before she passed on, she started to take up a form of knitting again.

Dee was an avid reader and especially enjoyed novels. She loved her Bible reading most of all and enjoyed following Christian television. She read her Bible aloud every day because she said produced health benefits for her, like it lowered her blood sugar. She believed in giving and was a frequent contributor to a number of charitable Christian organizations.

Dee could be counted on to keep her word and do whatever she committed to. She was task oriented, sometimes to the point where she neglected herself in order to get something done she promised to someone else. When her husband Bill became so ill with Parkinson's, she was often his sole caregiver, helping him do daily tasks and driving him to places he wanted or needed to go.

Dee enjoyed the activities at Eaton and was a frequent participant in the church services, exercise classes, and Bingo. She always had a ready smile for people she met and said she felt she could make someone's day better by offering them a smile. She said she almost always got a smile back.

At a visit to a craft store in Tucson with one of her daughters, Dee found a decorative sticker that said, "With God all things are possible." She bought it and placed it on the wall across from her bed so she could see it every morning. When she moved to Lakewood, she made a point of bringing that sticker with her in her suitcase and first thing put it up on her bedroom wall in her new apartment. It was there when she went to be with the Lord.

She repeatedly said how much she loved her children. When Bill went to be with the Lord about a year and a half ago, she stayed in Tucson long enough to clear up the sale of the house they had shared in Tucson and to tie up loose ends. Then she asked her eldest daughter, Linda, to help her move to Denver so she could be near her daughter Peggy and son Steve and their children and grandchildren.

Nothing would please Dee more than the thought of going to be with her Lord and Savior on Easter Sunday, the anniversary of His resurrection. She was taken home quietly in the evening and was found the next morning because she had a date to meet with her Steve and didn't answer her phone.

Dee is survived by her three children, six grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. Even though she only lived in Lakewood a year, her ready smile in the halls at Eaton is sure to be missed.

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