Dolores Kelver

Dolores Janet “Tootsie” Kelver, died peacefully in her sleep on Sunday, February 22nd. She was 90.

Dolores lived in South Bend her entire life. Born June 9th, 1935, she was shaped by a challenging childhood. She would one day provide something very different for her own children.

She graduated from South Bend Central High School, where she was a member of the Tumblers Club, in 1953. She married in 1957, while she was employed as a clerical worker at Torrington Bearing Company.

For 25 years, she worked as a manager at Fannie May, first at Scottsdale Mall and later at University Park. Cashews and gummy bears and boxes of chocolate were regular, and welcome, gifts at Christmas and Easter. She herself relished a buttercream.

Her home was managed with equal care. Clean and tidy, neatly landscaped, it was always open.

Dolores’ greatest treasure was her family. She beamed with signature pride at even the smallest accomplishments of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She would react with her entire body at just the sight of one of us, arms up, eyebrows arched, almost singing our names. And when you said goodbye, after you had appeased her voracious appetite for stories, updates, photos, and videos, she would marvel aloud that she could hug you. She’d look you in the eye and hold your hand and say she loved you so much. “My boy,” she’d say. “My girl.”

That love flowed outward from the passion of her marriage. Duane proposed humbly, turning to her on the couch while they watched TV and asking her, without quite knowing it, to become the matriarch of a family that would eventually sprawl from the Midwest to the Deep South and halfway across the Pacific to the Hawaiian Islands.

They were married for 68 years, during which time they loved deeply. Together, they traveled the country and the world. Their first vacation was to Mackinac Island. In 1976, they took their three sons on a 21-day, 6,800 mile trip to the Tetons, Yellowstone, and California in their travel trailer. For almost thirty years, they spent their summer weekends at their park model, first at Twin Mills Campground and later at Grandview Bend Campground. After retiring, spring brought an annual trip south, first to Englewood, Florida, and then to St. Simons Island, Georgia. They whitewater rafted and cliff jumped in West Virginia, watched whales in Hawaii, and explored the local cultures of Louisiana, Australia, and New Zealand.

In her later years, she was less mobile, and when she was deep in her coloring books or watching videos to learn about culture and women’s history from the comfort of her couch, Duane served her without fail, bringing anything he could to make her happy. She would say, “Duane!” and he would say, “What, babe?” It was their life together, many miles traveled alongside each other, that inspired that devotion in him.

She may have made each of us feel like we were her favorite, but really, we know it was always him. She had many interests in life aside from her family, as well. For years, she volunteered in her community, both as mass coordinator at St. Thérèse Little Flower Catholic Church and as an usher at the Morris Performing Arts Center. She enjoyed decades’ worth of season tickets to Notre Dame football and men’s and women’s basketball. She could watch and rewatch the performances of her favorite athletes in tennis, figure skating, golf, and more. She played euchre. She planted flowers, geraniums and begonias and snapdragons, every spring. She crocheted rich afghans for her grandchildren and countless ear warmers for the local homeless shelter. She decorated her house elaborately for every holiday. She watchedWheel of Fortune and Jeopardy with an almost religious zeal. She could hardly stand to be away from Tanner, her “Pooch,” for any length of time.

She was a childlike 90, curious and open and often awestruck. Her house was hot, her TV was loud, her joy was raucous. We miss her.

She is survived by her husband, Duane Kelver, her older sister Lorraine Audenaert, her younger sister Christine Dye, her three sons, Kevin (Carla) Kelver, Kurt (Julie) Kelver, and Kerry (fiancée DeeDee) Kelver, her six grandchildren, Zachary (Danielle) Kelver, Zak (Mackenzie) Kelver, Katie Howell, Joshua (Ashley) Kelver, Kylie (Jorge) Arevalo, and Korie (fiancé Duane) Kelver, her step-granddaughter Marci (Chris) Hoerz, her fifteen great-grandchildren, Adisynne, Mason, Judah, Gemma, Lilah, Natalee, Silas, Claire, Chloe, Bentley, Aubrey, August, Lucian, Julian, and Georgia, and her step-great-grandchildren, Tyler and Benjamin, whom she treated as her own.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Stanley and Theresa Grayzck, her brothers-in-law, Ronald Audenart, Thomas Dye, and Darwin Kelver, and her sister-in-law Joan Kelver.

Family and friends are invited to Catholic mass on Tuesday, March 3rd at 11:00 AM at St. Thérèse Little Flower Catholic Church at 54191 N Ironwood Rd, South Bend, IN 46635.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to St. Jude Children’s Hospital