Dolores Evelyn Andrews Lewis, 92, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, January 31, 2023, in San Angelo, Texas, where she and husband Don Charles Lewis lived since 1993.
She was born in Hopkins, Missouri on October 20, 1930, the second of five children born to George Ellis Andrews and Jennie Enders. In the early years of the Great Depression, her father was gone a lot, traveling as far as California to work as a welder on construction projects while his wife remained in Hopkins, tending to boarders and babies. At times, Dolores and her young siblings would either reside at their grandparents' farm in Hopkins or be “dragged across the country like kittens" as the family set up temporary housekeeping near the construction sites.
Once she was old enough to attend school, Dolores spent most of her youth in the farming community where she was born. She graduated from Maryville High School in 1948 and enrolled at Northwest Missouri State University for a couple of years without deciding on a major. She sat for a state teachers' examination, more or less on a dare, and was offered an elementary school teaching position some distance from her hometown. Accepting this position meant moving away from her family, but it gave her the chance to discover that she absolutely loved teaching young children.
In the spring of 1952, her father was fatally injured in an accident, and Dolores returned home at age 21 to assist her newly widowed mother. She found another teaching position locally, but had to resign a few months later due to a spinal injury sustained in an automobile accident. Immobilized in a half-body cast for several weeks, Dolores was unable to feed or dress herself, or even brush her hair; she was now as dependent on her mother as if she were an infant again.
While recovering from her injury and the loss of her father, Dolores became reacquainted with Don Charles Lewis, a fellow Maryville High graduate who was home visiting his relatives after two tours of duty in the US Navy. Dolores and Don fell in love and soon were engaged. Don found a job in Dallas, and Dolores decided to finish her degree, enrolling at Texas Woman's University in Denton. The couple wed in December of 1953, and moved into married student housing in Denton for one semester while Don commuted back and forth to Dallas.
Upon graduating from TWU, Dolores was hired by the Dallas Independent School District; she and Don relocated to the Oak Cliff section of Dallas, where they would spend the next four decades making their careers and raising three sons. Soon after moving to Oak Cliff, Dolores and Don joined the Tyler Street Methodist Church, where they sang in the adult choir and began to forge life-long friendships with the other members of the Two by Two Sunday School class, which was made up of other recently wed couples.
Dolores taught mostly first graders throughout her career with the Dallas ISD. After brief stints at other schools, she spent a few years at Harrell Budd Elementary in Oak Cliff before transferring to Adelle Turner Elementary, where she remained for 12 years. During this time, she earned her master's degree in Elementary Education from TWU, making the 90-mile round-trip from Oak Cliff to Denton several nights a week. Her graduate thesis involved compiling a large number of children’s’ songs with lyrics teaching elementary school subjects ranging from learning courteous manners, to memorizing essential facts about the calendar, important holidays, seasons of the year, arithmetic, spelling, natural history, and geography.
After a dozen years at Turner, Dolores ended her career with another dozen years at Leslie A. Stemmons Elementary. In 1993, she and Don moved to San Angelo to be near their grandchildren. Not yet ready to give up teaching, Dolores promptly signed up as a substitute teacher in San Angelo and tutored a few neighborhood children. She and Don joined the First United Methodist Church of San Angelo, and Dolores also joined the Concho Valley Quilters Guild, where she made other fast friends. She also attended local meetings of Delta Kappa Gamma, a professional organization of women educators in which she served for decades while teaching in Dallas.
As the other members of the Two by Two class retired and gradually became dispersed, reunions regularly took place in Dallas or at the Deitzel Motel in Fredericksburg, where the friends would gather once or twice a year.
Dolores took care of her husband Don in the final years before his death in 2010, and remained in the house they built in San Angelo until the last few weeks of her life. She lived temporarily at the Lyndale Senior Living facility in San Angelo while recuperating from illnesses in recent years, but she always returned to her own home when her health permitted. In recent years, she was assisted in both places by several amazing ladies (her “angels”) who came daily to help with her housekeeping, meal preparation, sewing projects, and written correspondence, and who drove her to her various appointments.
Dolores was preceded in death by her husband of 57 years, Don Charles Lewis. She outlived her parents, her four siblings, and many dear friends. She is survived by three sons: Dr. Don Michael Lewis of San Angelo, David Roger Lewis of Rowlett, and Dan Lewis of Carrollton, Texas; her grandchildren: Katharine Lewis Brundrett of Hye Texas, John Stuart Lewis of Baltimore, and Mary Claire Collins of San Marcos; three great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, the family suggest a memorial contribution to the Delta Kappa Gamma International Teacher's Society, the Lyndale San Angelo Senior Living facility, or the First United Methodist Church of San Angelo.
The Funeral Service will be 10:00 A.M., Friday, February 17, 2023 at Harper Funeral Home with a visitation to follow the service from 11:00 A.M. – 12:30 P.M. The interment will be private.
Family and friends may share condolences and sign the online register book at www.harper-funeralhome.com.
Funeral Service
Friday, February 17, 2023
10:00AM
Harper Funeral Home
2606 Southland Boulevard
San Angelo, TX 76904
Visitation
Friday, February 17, 2023
11:00AM - 12:30PM
Harper Funeral Home
2606 Southland Boulevard
San Angelo, TX 76904
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