Dolores Isom Olds

Services will be streamed beginning at 10:45 a.m. the day of the service and can be accessed by clicking on the following link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88119282305?pwd=MFJKYVhobzl5eVk4emZ3QlMyOXd6UT09

Dolores Isom Olds passed away Sunday April 30th, 2023 on her 94th birthday. She was born in Hurricane, Utah in 1929, the third of four children, to Thomas Irving Isom and Eugenia Walker McAllister. She developed a lifelong group of friends in Hurricane who called themselves the  Dirty Dozen.

As a teenager she worked summers packing her dad’s and uncles’ peaches for transport and as a chambermaid at Zion Lodge and Bryce Canyon Lodge. She loved the red rock country. 

In 1947, while out walking with her sister Opal, she first met her husband Franklin Kent Olds who was out with his brother Richard, a friend of Opal. She started school at Dixie College that year but was soon home again to help her mother who had suffered a heart attack. In 1948 she and Kent both moved to Salt Lake City where he finished his degree in pharmacology and she attended LDS Business College while living with and working as a nanny for the G. Homer Durham family. 

On November 23rd, 1950 Kent and Dolores eloped to Las Vegas to be married in the home of a local bishop. After Kent’s graduation the following June they moved to Fillmore, Utah, where their sons David Kent and Kelly Thomas were born. In 1956 they moved to Salt Lake City, where their daughters Leslie Jean, Doralee and Shannon were born. They were sealed as a family in the Salt Lake Temple in June 1957. 

They moved to 18th East in 1956, where she lived for the next 60 years. There she made more lifelong friends, including her best friend Sonja Shelton. She enjoyed many adventures with her friends who called themselves Side By Side after the old song. They traveled to the Shakespeare Festival together for nearly 40 years, driving up Kolob Canyon to sing together under the stars. She was a founding member of The Salt Crystals, a choral group that sang around the Salt Lake valley. She learned to play the guitar and ukulele with Sonja and passed her love of singing to her kids. Several of her children returned the favor by learning to play ukuleles and singing the old cowboy songs with her often in the last year of her life.

After Kent’s death in 1998 Dolores served 18 months as a senior missionary in Calgary, Canada, then returned home to serve another eight years at Temple Square, including working as an usher in the Conference Center. She also volunteered with Hospice and was happy serving wherever she could. She was a prolific reader until losing her eyesight, then listened to audio books. She loved to study the scriptures, patting her books each time she closed them.

Raised as a farmer’s daughter, Dolores learned many skills and passed them on. She was an amazing homemaker, baking a dozen loaves of bread at a time to feed her family and share with neighbors. She canned peaches and tomatoes, sewed clothing for her children and made dolls and doll furniture for her daughters. Her garden was her delight, planting “one of each” kind of flower she could find. She was a good cook, with a favorite simple summer meal of Cutler’s corn, yellow crookneck squash and sliced salted tomatoes right off the vine. And fresh peaches. And apricots from her tree. And homemade grape juice. And “a sliver of each kind of pie” available. She made homemade root beer for family celebrations.

And she did all this while working to support her family and care for Kent through many years of his illness. She worked at Riverside Elementary, American Press, Hiller Bookbinding, then retired from the Salt Lake School District. 

Dolores lived independently, though rarely alone, until a stroke in 2018 meant more help was needed. A series of grandkids lived at Hotel Grandma during their college years. She was an involved grandmother, traveling for weddings, baptisms and baby blessings and hosting summer sleep outs and winter igloo building.

Dolores was predeceased by her parents, her brothers Irving McAllister (Mac) and Lowell Hinton, and her sister Opal (John/Jack) Burt; her husband Kent; her grandson Benjamin Kent Olds; her daughter-in-law Theresa Nellie Bailey Olds; her great-grandson Cooper Kent Hofmann and many, many friends. She is survived by her five children, David (Lori), Kelly, Leslie (Jon) Andersen, Dorie Olds, and Shannon (Kerry) Pyne; 15 grandchildren and 28 great grandchildren. She always said she felt best when surrounded by her family. So today is a daisy good day.

Services will be held Saturday May 13th, 2023 at Crystal Heights ward, 1970 E Stratford Ave, Salt Lake City. Visitation 9:30-10:30 a.m. Funeral 11 a.m. Interment at Wasatch Lawn 3401 S Highland Drive. Cannon Mortuary, Funeral Directors.