Dolores Erne-Smith

Dolores Erne-Smith, devoted mother and greathearted friend, passed away on September 2 at the age of 92.

Dolores was born to Ned and Laura Folk and raised in Milbank, South Dakota. She married James Erne in 1947. After living in many towns in North and South Dakota, and with a growing family, the Ernes finally settled in Grangeville, Idaho, in 1960. From then on, Dolores considered Grangeville her home.  

Dolores had many passions in life, including her faith, career, travel, and family. For the nearly 60 years she lived in Grangeville, she was an active member of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, where she served on the parish council and supported the expansion of the parish facilities. She was a member of the Altar Society and enrolled her children in the parish school. 

In 1974, Dolores took a job at the Grangeville Job Service, where she worked until her retirement in 1990. The most rewarding challenge of her career was when she took on the unfilled Local Veterans Employment Representative position. At the time, this position was considered a man’s job, but Dolores volunteered when no other man in the office would take it. Recognizing the challenges faced by veterans trying to obtain employment benefits, which could vary by employer, she developed materials to help veterans understand and access their benefits in an era before the internet made the process easier. The materials she developed were adopted by other offices in the state, earning her a state achievement award. 

An avid traveler, Dolores enjoyed learning history and culture and exploring nature in the places she visited. She was just as comfortable traveling nationally and internationally with her family as she was camping and exploring nature in the national and state parks of the Western United States. But she also just enjoyed a drive along the South Fork to stick her feet in the water, or into the foothills to hike and pick huckleberries.

The most important passion in Dolores’s life was her children. Nothing made her feel more blessed than to spend time with them, particularly when everyone assembled for a family reunion. Her children and grandchildren were scattered far and wide, so having all her “babies” together at one time gave her the greatest joy.

Dolores’s first husband, Jim, passed away in 1988, and she married Clifton Smith in 1990. She is survived by eight of her ten children, 12 grandchildren, and 11 great grandchildren. She is preceded in death by her parents, sisters, both husbands, and children Mary and Geralyn. The surviving children include Christine (Bryan Stone), Kathleen, James Jr. (Holly Huber), Richard (Kris Quickstad and former spouse Laura Perrigo), Laura (John Zakrajsek), Steve, Suzanne, and David (Ricardo Delgado).

Memorial services will be held in Grangeville at a future date, when conditions from the COVID-19 pandemic improve.