Dolores Rebecca Joseph

Dolores Rebecca Joseph, 94, of Champaign passed away on Friday, May 5, 2023 at Clark Lindsey Village in Urbana.

Dolores, born July 9, 1928, was the fourth child of Lewis Joseph and Rose (Flaxman) Joseph. Lew was a New York City detective and then Assistant District Attorney, while Rose earned a degree in law but never practiced, instead staying home to raise their children Ruth, Elaine, Edwin, and Dolores. Dolores was preceded in death by her older siblings.

Dolores was twice married and twice divorced; both ex-husbands were named Sidney. The first Sidney was the father of their two children, George Gollin, a physics professor at the University of Illinois, and Olivia Gollin Hoepfl, a retired special education teacher and coordinator, living in Ohio. George and his wife Melanie Loots are parents to Dolores’s first grandchild, Cordelia, while Olivia and her husband Bill Hoepfl are parents to Dolores’s second grandchild, Lucas. Cordelia and her husband Viraj are the parents of Anjali, Dolores’s great granddaughter.

Dolores earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brooklyn and Queens College, taught English in New York City and suburban schools, and eventually moved into administration as an assistant principal. She retired in 1986 and joined her sisters in a senior citizens’ residential community outside Princeton. There she met Donald Jones, a retired physician who became her partner in life for nearly 20 years. Dolores and Donald eventually moved to Champaign to be closer to her family. Dolores was a strong, aggressive tennis player who regularly trounced the (male) teachers with whom she would play, and after retiring, played with a group of women who were thirty years her junior. She was a talented pianist, blasting through complicated pieces like the Grieg Piano Concerto and solo-piano reductions of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and other compositions. Dolores loved Chautauqua Institution, and vacationed there during summers for more than thirty years. She was loving, strong willed, charismatic, and a wonderful mother and grandmother who loved to cook. We will miss her, and will celebrate her life Sunday, May 14, 2023 at 3pm, at Renner-Wikoff Chapel, 1900 Philo Road, Urbana.

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