Alice Apodaca “was a character and a ham,” said her daughter Barbara Robb of Centennial.
Other relatives echoed the assessment of Apocada, who died June 26. She was 91.
They remembered her always dancing, even if she had to dance alone, dressed “to the nines,” in brightly colored clothes and telling stories, always with some embellishment.
“She was a born entertainer, loved to pretend and would have probably been on stage if she hadn’t had a family,” Robb said.
Many in the family called her “Little Alice, the jitterbug queen.”
Apodaca worked hard all her life and for many years was a single mom. She got jobs sorting clothes at the Salvation Army, at a cafeteria downtown and later as a checker for a supermarket. Each night she worked at memorizing the price of everything in the store, Robb said.
Often the family supplemented its food supply with day-old breads and pastries that Apodaca could bring home from the supermarket.
She took English, writing and typing classes, taught her grandchildren manners and “if we didn’t use them, she wouldn’t take us out to eat,” granddaughter Lisa West said.
For Apodaca, life was “magic,” said another granddaughter, Carla Farrar of Sagle, Idaho.
Only five feet tall, Apodaca loved to dress in bright clothes, wear high heels and redesign clothes to her liking.
She often stole the show on the dance floor, Robb said, and would admit only to being 49 even when her daughters were in their 60s. “She shot us wicked glances when someone asked us her age,” Robb said.
Apodaca “was the one everyone went to for advice,” said West, who lives in Denver. “She was the rock of the family.”
Apodaca loved animals, including stuffed animals, and once had at least 70 stuffed animals. She made pets out of chickens.
“She always said if I was lonely, I could look at the clouds and I’d see her waving at me,” Farrar said.
“She wanted us to dream big and put our hearts into everything we did,” West said.
Alice Harriet Ortiz was born in Alamosa on May 28, 1917, and moved with her parents to Denver when she was 2. She married Benny Chavez, and they had three children before divorcing. Her second husband, Ines Apodaca, whom she married in 1950, became “the only father we knew,” Robb said. He died in 1998.
Over the years, Alice Apodaca lived at various downtown locations but lived the longest in west Denver.
In addition to Robb, she is survived by another daughter, Loretta Talian; nine grandchildren; 17 great-grandchildren; and seven great-great-grandchildren.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
