Doris W. Passante, 86, died at Crosslands Firbank Health Center near Kennett Square, on Monday, Sept. 13.
Doris was born in North Carolina to the late Floyd and Juanita Welch. She had many fond memories of her early years in a closely-knit mountain community with her parents, grandparents, and many beloved aunts, uncles, and cousins. Her family moved to southern Chester County in the early 1940s, where she resided for the rest of her life.
She was a 1951 graduate of Avon Grove High School and a 1955 graduate of Elizabethtown College. After college, she returned to Avon Grove where she taught elementary school. As a young teacher, she met a young principal from a neighboring district, Fred R. Passante, and they married in 1957.
Doris left teaching in the late 1950s to raise her family. In the 1970s, she returned to the workforce, earning her real estate broker's license, a profession she thoroughly enjoyed until her retirement in the mid-1990s
In her retirement, Doris enjoyed classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Delaware, educational trips with Rhodes scholars, and road trips with her husband prior to his death. A true people person with many friends, Doris was an avid bridge player, a lover of books and member of several book clubs, and a member of a number of social clubs over the years, including her Beta Sigma Phi sorority. She also was an enthusiastic genealogist, spending many hours on her computer researching her family's history in the United States over three centuries.
In addition to her parents, Doris was predeceased by her husband in 2005.
Doris is survived by two daughters, Lisa Passante and her husband Michael Kaplan of Landenberg; Carol Daggers and her husband David of Wilmington; and one son, Joseph Passante Sr. and his wife Carol of Kennett Square. She is also survived by five grandchildren, five great-granddaughters, and a brother, Ed Welch of Quarryville.
Due to the ongoing COVID crisis, services will be private. Prior to her passing, Doris requested that in lieu of flowers contributions may be made to Heifer International, a global nonprofit founded as a project of the Church of the Brethren in the 1940s and supported from its inception by one of Doris's favorite uncles, a Brethren minister. Information can be found at http://www.heifer.org/give/one-time.html
Arrangements are by Matthew Grieco of Grieco Funeral Home & Crematory, Inc. (1800-FUNERAL). To send an online condolence please visit www.griecofunerals.com
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