Dorotha Maris Dickey

On Saturday October 10th, 2020, Maris passed away peacefully at her daughters home in Rapid City, South Dakota after a long beautiful life with her family by her side. She was 93 years old.

Maris was born on January 31, 1927 and was welcomed home to Draper South Dakota. She attended school at Lincoln Crest Rural School, graduated from Murdo High School in 1945 and went on to attend Southern Normal School in Springfield so she could become a teacher.

Maris was born on January 31, 1927 in Draper South Dakota. She graduated from Murdo High School in 1945.
In 1946 she was united in marriage to James Dickey and lived in Murdo for their first 3 years. They welcomed Janice Marie in April of 1947. They moved to Rapid City and Lawrence James was born in October of 1948. They then moved to a farm in Piedmont and Harold Lester came into the family in September of 1949. An opportunity to work in Custer State Park arose & they lived in the park for 4 years. Jo Ann arrived in April of 1952 to complete their family. They then moved to Ham Dairy Farm near Caputa where they stayed for 18 years becoming family friends with the Ham’s. She worked at Newberry’s Department Store and Gambles. Unfortunately when they had to leave the dairy, they moved to Rapid Valley and eventually bought the Rapid Valley Hatchery/Zip Feed Store where Maris worked with Jim until 1980. She retired from Spencer Gifts in the Rushmore Mall in 1990. She volunteered at Rapid Valley Church and with RSVP and did some part time work to keep busy after Jim passed in 2001. In 2015 she moved to Primrose Senior Community until July 2020 when she moved in with her daughters for her final care.

Maris is survived by her 4 children, Janice, Larry (Sandy), Hal (Margaret) and Jo; and a sister Grace of Omaha, NE. Also many cousins, nieces and nephews, family members and great friends, too many to mention them all. Grandma Maris was blessed with 9 grandchildren, 32 great-grandchildren and 26 great great-grandchildren which were the apples of her eye. She was preceded in death by her husband Jim, son-in-law Don, her parents; Ethel and Kenneth Spear, 2 sisters; Eva and Cora, sister-in-law Leone; brother-in-law Kenny, and 3 grandsons; Jamie, Ross and Rob.