Dorothy Gilson
Submitted by highlander1 on
Dorothy Gilson
Dec. 28, 1922 ~ May 28, 2016
Dorothy Gilson of Marble Falls passed away on Saturday, May 28, 2016 at her residence at the Arbor House.
Dorothy was born on Dec. 28, 1922 to Arthur Olson and Helen Knopp Olson in Des Moines, Iowa and was the third of four children.
She moved to Perry, Iowa as a young child and lived there until joining the Foreign Service after high school.
She worked at the Pentagon and in Germany before moving to Houston, Texas, where her sister Mildred was living at the time, and which became her home for the next 60+ years.
It was there that she met her husband Harold Edwin Gilson Sr., raised her two children, and made many life-long friends.
Dorothy had a big personality and a hearty laugh!
At 5’9” tall, with sea green eyes, jet black hair and cherry red lipstick, she easily captured attention wherever she went.
She dressed well in vivid colors and her social calendar was always full with parties or luncheons.
Dorothy was a shopper....year round.
She sought out bargains and delighted in gift giving.
It was her expression of love and brought her great joy.
She never missed a birthday and never failed to try to pick up the tab for a meal.
She was quick with genuine compliments.
Although Dorothy enjoyed the finer things in life (especially clothes from her niece Roberta), she was frugal in many ways having grown up in the height of the depression.
Simple enjoyments included many a weekend with her family at Caney Creek sunbathing and listening to her beloved Astros on the radio, mowing the lawn and painting the fence in Smithville, and her love of bowling and drawing.
She was a city girl at heart but maintained many friendships with fellow Iowans as those were her roots.
Dorothy was strong and bold and fiercely independent.
She enjoyed each day as it came and had a child-like faith in Jesus as her Lord and Savior.
Dorothy will surely be remembered most for her sense of humor, which she maintained to the end despite the many other things that dementia robbed from her.
Her last words were, “I love you.”
Dorothy was preceded in death by her parents and husband.
Dorothy is survived by her children, Harold Edwin, Jr. (Kingsland/San Antonio) and wife, Juli, and Mary Helen Carwardine (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) and husband, Peter; her grandchildren, Amber (Spencer) LeDoux, Gray (Mike) Bulman, Laura Carwardine, and Andy Carwardine; and her great-grandchildren, Jasmine, Taliesin, Alistair and Tessa LeDoux; niece, Roberta Green Ahmanson and husband Howard and son David; nephew, Roy Fell.
A memorial for her will be held Friday, June 17, 2016 at 10 a.m. at the Arbor House, 1801 Kings Road, Marble Falls.
Interment will be at Forest Park Cemetery in Houston.
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