Dorothy Redding

Dorothy Joan (Josepeit) Redding died peacefully on December 21, 2018, at her home in Idaho Falls, Idaho, at the age of 91.

Dorothy was born to Fred A. and Ruth A. Josepeit in her grandmother's house in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Saturday, February 26, 1927. She worked on the family farm near Fondis, Colorado, and graduated from Calhan Union High School in 1945. She then attended Colorado Women's College in Denver and taught elementary school for several years in Elbert, Colorado, before marrying Clinton John Redding on August 20, 1947 in Raton, New Mexico. By taking night classes and summer school, Dorothy completed her Bachelor of Arts in Education from the University of Northern Colorado, in 1963. She and John made their home in Colorado Springs, where Dorothy remained until she moved to Idaho Falls in 2017, to live near her daughter Heather.

Dorothy was a long-time member of the Colorado Mountain Club and also the Fourteeners Club, having climbed all fifty-three 14,000-foot elevation mountain peaks in Colorado. Teaching, raising two daughters, cross-country skiing, hiking, reading and gardening filled her days. After she retired from teaching in 1987, Dorothy traveled Europe, visiting England, Scotland, Germany, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, ending her travels at the age of 70 when she and her daughter Heather made a trip to Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1997. Dorothy was an avid churchwoman, and a faithful member of the altar guilds of Grace Episcopal Church and then later at St. George's Anglican Church, both in Colorado Springs.

She is survived by her two children: Heather Redding (Herschel Smartt) of Idaho Falls, and Pamela Redding of Honolulu, HI; also six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Dorothy was preceded in death by her husband of 34 years; her parents; an infant brother, Robert; and her three sisters: Marjorie Lou Rogers, Shirley Ruth Hair and Caroline (Kay) Arvilla West.

In accordance with Dorothy's wishes, no funeral will be held. Instead, a private Celebration of Life is planned for a later date, and her cremains returned to her beloved Colorado, at Dorothy's request. Those wishing to make a memorial might take inspiration from her own life and go climb a 14-er, grow a flower garden, travel the world, read a book, and live life fully, as she did.

Private Celebration of Life will be held. She passed away on