Lila LaDuke “feared no one,” said her son Bob LaDuke of Grand Junction.
Lila LaDuke, who ran a day-care center, boarded college athletes and worked for Western Union, died March 7, just weeks before her 103rd birthday.
A remembrance of her life will be held in May.
LaDuke was only 5-foot-3, “but she thought she was 6-8 and 280 pounds,” Bob LaDuke said.
She took no guff from the 16 athletes from Mesa Junior College who boarded with her.
Any argument among the boys never went far because LaDuke would say: “You need to behave or get out. One of you is going to leave. Make up your mind. Or I’ll decide.”
“She was jolly, but she could be a tiger,” Bob LaDuke said. She got most aggravated “if someone tried to make a fool out of her or lied to her,” he said.
The boys “had a lot of respect for her and called her ‘Mom LaDuke,’ ” he said.
The athletes, all of whom towered over her, had to make their beds and keep their rooms in order. If they didn’t, she’d strip the sheets off and they’d have to remake the bed when they got home.
The boys got breakfast and dinner, so “she was constantly cooking,” said her son Tom LaDuke. She and two women worked from two stoves and three refrigerators.
LaDuke also ran a day-care center, some years concurrently with boarding athletes.
“She raised a lot of kids and gave them a good foundation in manners and discipline,” said Tom LaDuke, of Grand Junction.
“She also had a heart of gold and never made any money” in her business ventures “because she constantly gave it away or accepted pay in goods,” such as Avon products.
Lila Alta Joy was born in Ravenna, Ohio, on April 17, 1906, and moved to Grand Junction when she was a child. Her father, Elton Richard Joy, got a job running the Western Union telegraph office.
She went through her junior year in high school and began working in the telegraph office, 10- to 12-hour shifts.
“It was a big piece of the community then,” said Bob LaDuke, “with banks of machines” in an office on Main Street. “Mail service wasn’t good, and few people had phones.”
She married Alfred Herman LaDuke on Nov. 25, 1925.
Rarely ill, Lila LaDuke never stopped working. After the kids and the athletes, she took in senior women. When she was in the Fruita care facility, she became “the oldest paper carrier,” delivering 25 to 30 Grand Junction Sentinels to the other residents, hanging them on her walker.
Fashion wasn’t a concern. She had false teeth for years, “but they made her nervous” so she rarely wore them, Bob LaDuke said. “She was a character.”
In addition to her sons, she is survived by seven grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren. Her husband and son Dick LaDuke preceded her in death.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
