Dollie Deen (Parsons) Durant

Dollie passed away Sunday, November 30, 2025, at St. Mary’s hospital in Grand Junction after a brief illness. She was 82 years old.

Dollie was born October 17, 1943, in Amarillo, Texas, to Oscar and Virgie (Hargrave) Parsons. She spent her first 7 years in Texas before the family moved to San Diego, CA, in 1950. Following her father’s passing in 1952, the family moved to Delta, Colorado to live near her maternal grandparents. Dollie graduated from Delta High School in 1962, from Adams State College in 1966, and began a teaching career which included schools in New Mexico and Colorado. Then on July 4, 1973, she married Larry Durant in Delta where they lived together until moving to the Horizons Care Center in Eckert in 2019. Dollie could often be seen walking between home, the post office and other places around town with a bit of a limp, a result of childhood polio, which – as with many challenges – she did not let get the best of her.

Dollie was a devout Christian and was a member of the First Baptist Church in Delta, attending services in both the 4th & Meeker church and on Pioneer Road when the new church was completed at that location. Dollie greatly enjoyed attending events at the church and the summer camp on Grand Mesa. She loved and cared for her pet dogs and cats; both the living and the plush varieties. Dollie was also an avid reader of history and the Bible.

She was preceded in death by her father, Oscar, in 1952, and her mother, Virgie, in 1983. Surviving family includes her husband, Larry, in Eckert, her brother Ken and sister-in-law Shirley in Rangely, plus her nephews, Reid and Aaron, and their spouses and children in Massachusetts and California.

Graveside services will be held in the Mesa View Cemetery in Delta on Friday afternoon, December 5th at 2:30 p.m. to enable out-of-town family to participate. A memorial service will follow at 3:00 p.m. at the First Baptist Church on Pioneer Road. The family apologizes for the short notice.