Audrey "Jeanne" Oliver's Obituary
Audrey “Jeanne” Oliver
May 12, 1923 – December 25, 2024
Audrey passed away peacefully at the age of 101. She lived 85 of those years in Boulder and Denver, Colorado. She was born in Louisville, Colorado, to Joseph D. and Isabelle “Belle” Oliver. She spent her earliest years with her parents and older sister, Betty, as they endured hard, but happy, times through the Great Depression in small mining towns such as Lion Coal, Wyoming, Louisville, Colorado, and Hayden, Colorado. Her father was a coal miner. Her mother baked and sewed for her neighbors, while the two daughters herded the neighbor’s dairy cows before and after school to split one shiny quarter per week. In grade school, she and her sister made paper baskets and filled them with wildflowers which they left on neighbor’s doorsteps. They were in great demand for the leads in the school plays. She related that her parents always knew where she was because they could hear her singing at the top of her lungs. Though her fondest memories were from those nine years in Hayden, the family moved to Boulder, Colorado, in 1939 so the girls had access to a much broader education. Jeanne graduated second in her class from Boulder High School in 1941.
In 1945, she graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business. Her grades from high school earned her a scholarship through college yet she worked part-time during the school year and full-time in the summers to help her family financially. Within a year of graduation, she started her career in the sales office of General Electric. She rose through the ranks becoming an executive assistant to the vice president in sales. She retired after 38 years of dedicated service.
Jeanne never married as she felt her career and immediate family came first. She stayed with her parents while holding down a full-time job and helped them as they aged. In 1968, two years after her father’s death, she and her mother moved to Denver which greatly shortened her daily work commute.
She is remembered as a hard-working, intelligent, loving, loyal, and humble human being. One knew better than to disagree with her logic or memory of events as she was nearly always correct. This was a trait she maintained to the end. She loved her yard, her roses, her tree-lined neighborhood, and especially her caring neighbors. She cherished her extended family in Oregon and maintained close bonds with them over the decades. In 2018, her declining health forced a reluctant move from her precious Colorado to Milwaukie, Oregon, to be closer to family. Her assisted living caregivers unanimously remembered her as friendly and sweet with a pinch of feisty thrown in the mix.
She was preceded in death by her sister, Betty, and brother-in-law, Charles Hughson. She is survived by her nephews, Larry (Gail), Steve, Daniel (Kathy) Hughson, and her niece, Peggy (David) Zarosinski along with eight grandnieces and grandnephews and 13 great grandnieces and great grandnephews all of whom she loved dearly.
Jeanne now rests alongside her father and mother at Green Mountain Cemetery, Boulder, Colorado. At her request, no formal service was to be held and any contributions may be made to the Shriner’s Children’s Hospital.
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