- Date Of Birth: January 14, 1918
- Date Of Death: March 11, 2019
- State: Iowa
Dorothy (Ellsworth) Van Elsen passed away peacefully in her sleep on March 11, 2019.
Dorothy was born in the Colfax Sanitarium in Colfax on January 14, 1918, to Arthur Earl and Ida (Brown) Ellsworth. She was the valedictorian of her class when she graduated from Colfax High School in 1936.
Dorothy was a homemaker and loving mother to her eight children.
Dorothy is survived by her eight children, Lucien (Karen) Van Elsen, Jean (Max) Wallace, Helen (John Grannis) Reitan, Henry (Linda) Van Elsen, Robert (Connie) Van Elsen, James (Beth) Van Elsen, Lynda (Denny) Brouwer, and Larry Van Elsen; her sister, Rosa Lee Sutton; 14 grandchildren; 16 great-grandchildren; 16 great-great-grandchildren; many step-grandchildren; and by people who have “adopted” her as Mom and Grandma. She was preceded in death by her father in 1958; mother in 1995; her husband, Lucien in 1994; brother, Norman Earl Ellsworth who was killed in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 during WWII; sister, Florence Bernice in 1927; and sister, Clara Ann Ellsworth Breckenridge in 2012.
