Holly Lynn Smith Olson, 32, and her newborn daughter, Anette Sue Olson, died Thursday after Holly Olson suffered a undiagnosed aortic aneurysm unrelated to the pregnancy.
A service will be held at 10:30 a.m. today at St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church, 350 White Bay Drive, Highlands Ranch.
Holly Smith was born on Feb. 2, 1973, at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Denver, the fifth generation of her family born at that institution.
She grew up in Park Hill, where she attended Montview Presbyterian Preschool and Park Hill Elementary School.
For 13 years, she took dance lessons at Mattie Springfield’s studio. She was one of the first altar girls at Curé d’Ars Catholic Church.
After graduating from East High School, she earned a bachelor’s degree at Fort Lewis College and began a career in mortgage banking. In 1998, she met Jeff Olson, a staffer in Durango’s Bureau of Land Management office, at a country-western dance. They married in 2003 after moving to Denver.
She married into a football- crazed family.
Weekends once meant theater performances. Now, she found herself driving to Lamar, Niwot, Lyons, Limon and other small towns to join her husband and his family as they cheered at high school and college football games.
“She said she’d never been to as many games in her whole life as she did after she got involved with Jeff,” said her mother-in- law, Carol Olson.
Holly and Jeff Olson went hiking, too. Occasionally, Holly Olson skipped a Friday football game to get together with her friends or join her family at their Berthoud Falls cabin.
She quit her job about eight months ago upon discovering that she was pregnant.
“She told me that she was thankful to have the opportunity to stay home and concentrate on being a good wife and mother,” longtime friend Deborah Wasechek wrote in Olson’s memorial guest book.
After resigning from her job, Olson revamped her life. Instead of reading novels, she studied “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and other guides for pregnant women. Several days after her death, “What to Expect” remained on the high chair, marked at the section on keeping babies safe.
Using a toy baby programmed to wail realistically, the Olsons spent months training their once-unpredictable dog, Sleet, to familiarize him with infants.
With her husband, she designed an appealingly neutral yellow nursery – both she and her husband declined to learn the gender of the baby. Onesies and other baby clothes, folded tidily in stacks, waited on shelves.
“She was so excited when she learned she was going to have a baby,” wrote Edna Gallagher, who worked with Olson for seven years in the mortgage business.
“She will have her with her in heaven.”
Besides her husband, survivors include her mother, Sue Lenihan Smith of Littleton, and a brother, Kevin Smith of Winter Park. Her father recently preceded her in death.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
