Sunday Obituary: Dulcie Carver was feisty, gruff and lovable
Sunday, June 22, 2008 12:37 AM PDT
By Tony Lystra
Printable version
E-mail this articleDulcie Carver had trouble with men.
"She just couldn't find the right one," her daughter, Carol Mast, said Friday. "And then sometimes they'd up and die on her. She always laughed about that."
Carver, who died June 14 at age 85, outlived five husbands, most of whom she had divorced.
She also lost three of her four grown children, all of whom, Mast said, "died badly." One daughter died after a heroin overdose. Another was killed by a diseased liver after years of alcohol abuse. And a son, headed back to fight in Vietnam, died after he was struck by a bottle during a night of drinking in Hawaii.
Carver, truly a member of her generation, kept it all to herself, Mast said. "She just never talked about it."
She was tough and ornery. She worked hard, kept her remaining family close and plodded on, earning a reputation as a devoted worker, a sharp thinker and a quick wit.
Carver was employed at Longview's local TV station, KLTV, for nearly a decade until she retired five years ago, according to Carver's granddaughter, Philomena Thomas, of Longview.
Marilyn Freerks, the station's volunteer coordinator, said Carver trained her when she first began working at the station. "Believe me, it was not easy to step in and take over her job, because she was so well loved," she said.
"She was very gruff," Freerks said. "But she was very intelligent and she was very organized. She knew her job."
Carver, who worked as a programmer coordinating what the station plays on the air, had an astounding memory. She could recall what had been recorded on a 10-year-old tape, Freerks said, and remember exactly where it had been filed.
Carver was born Oct. 6, 1922 in Laughor, Wales, to John and Margaret (Graonow) Williams. She moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada with her family when she was 6 and eventually graduated from Toronto's Jess Ketchum School.
In 1946, at the age of 18, she moved to Cowlitz County and worked as a secretary for the Long Bell Lumber Co., the company that founded Longview. She also ran a small soda shop on Columbia Way with her first husband, Nick Gilcher.
Coming to Longview from Toronto, a large city, was "big-time culture shock," Thomas said. "But she liked it."
Thomas, who cared for Carver at the end of her life, said she once asked her grandmother why she had had so many husbands.
"Men are like old shoes," Carver told her. "They should be changed on a regular basis."
She was shrewd, feisty and mischievous, Thomas said. She liked to collect restaurant menus and, during lunch at a casino a few years ago, tried to steal a rather large one by slipping it under her shirt. A security guard, who was laughing, approached her table and said, "Ma'am, if you'd like, I'd be happy to go get you a copy of that menu.
"What menu?" Carver asked.
She was also known to carry the most unexpected items in her purse. It was "like a magician's hat of tricks," Thomas said. "Everything you needed was in grandma's purse."
During a holiday gathering, Thomas's father had been hanging a picture when he asked for a hammer.
"Wait a minute, I've got one," said Carver, who yanked a hammer from her tote.
Carver also loved to visit a Northern California ranch with her family. She'd been a member of the time-share resort for years.
"My mother loved it down there," Mast said. "She would go down all the time when she was younger. ... I think she just liked the whole family being together down there."
During a stop at a produce checkpoint at the Oregon-California border on her way to the ranch, Carver once insisted that she and Thomas eat a bag of cherries rather than hand them over to the state patrol. She didn't want to waste, Thomas said.
When a trooper asked for the bag, Thomas said, Carver spit three cherries at him in mock protest.
"Sometimes, when they hit a certain age, it's like (they) get to enjoy a second childhood: 'To heck with it. I'll do what I want,'" Thomas said. "That's the way it should be."
mrs.nelson wrote on Jun 24, 2008 11:21 AM:
We will all miss you very much.I will think of you everyday.With every cup of tea I drink, and every crumpet I eat. But my sadness is setteled knowing I will see you again shortly. Tell mom and dad I love them and give them all a big hug and kiss for me. I love you dearly grandma, please look over us now as you did before.
Love forever, Val "
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