Doris E. Hass

Doris Elaine Hass, age 104, died peacefully Sunday, September 14, 2025, in Boulder, CO. She was born on November 24, 1920, and grew up in Garden City on Long Island, NY, as the only child of Frank E. (a WWI veteran) and Margaret (Stewart) Leman. Doris worked hard in school, played tennis, and enjoyed time at the beach. Her summers were spent at Lake Keuka in upstate New York, where she enjoyed swimming and visiting with her extended family. One of Doris’s passions was going to the movies. She loved going to New York City for concerts, plays, opera, art museums, and the library. She graduated from Hunter College (B.A.) and New York University (M.A., Phi Beta Kappa), majoring in studio art and art history. She was a budding artist and taught art at high schools on Long Island and later in Grosse Pointe, MI. During her college years, she embraced her love of adventure, traveling alone to Cuba, Mexico, and New Orleans, bringing along her sketching pad and watercolors.

During WWII, Doris was an art teacher by day, and in the evenings, she worked at Grand Central Station in the “bullpen” (information desk). “I never had to buy myself a cup of coffee,” she told. “Instead, I met lots of nice young men in uniform who would gladly invite me for a coffee before they caught their trains.”

During the war, she met her husband, Willard Christian Hass (1921-2000), who was a pilot in the U.S. Navy, at their local dentist’s office. One of their favorite activities was ballroom dancing at the Waldorf Astoria. Willard was her great love, and when the war was over, they married and had two children, David (of Shawnee, OK) and Julie (of Boulder, CO and Oslo, Norway). Willard graduated from CU-Boulder in 1954, and that was when they bought a plot of land in Boulder for a future home. In 1960, they moved back to Boulder and built their dream home on the corner of 22nd St. and Bluebell Avenue, the perfect place to raise their children, in a neighborhood filled with other young families who became good friends. For many years, a group of neighbors had tickets to the CU Buff football games. They all walked over to Folsom Field and cheered on their Buffs. Doris’s enjoyment of watching football games stayed with her until almost the end.

Church was an important part of Doris’s life, and in the early 1960s, the family joined Trinity Lutheran Church, where she became a willing volunteer. She was a member of the social ministry committee and helped serve the Second Sunday meal. But her favorite church ministry was being a Sunday School teacher for 3&4 year olds, which she did for more than 60 years.

Doris called herself a compulsive volunteer, and while raising her children, she was a vital part of the PTA and volunteered in David’s Boy Scouts and Julie’s Girl Scouts. Her enjoyment of meeting new people also got her involved in CU’s early Host Family program for foreign students, and some of these became long-term friends. Once her children were out of the house, she immersed herself in advocacy, and her biggest passions were the Boulder Public Library and AAUW. She was on the Library Commission and later founded the Boulder Library Foundation, which continues to support library programs. Getting kids to read was important to her, and in her later years, on Halloween, she filled her carport with books – “No candy, choose a book!” She believed in education, especially for girls, and “Expanding Your Horizons”, an annual AAUW Boulder Branch event to encourage middle school girls to continue to study math and science, became another of her projects. She was on the board of the Boulder County Latina League and helped them establish their scholarship program, and she helped establish the Senior Foundation. Because she was an avid reader of the Daily Camera, she constantly found new issues that she felt she could contribute to, such as the Hmong refugees, the Sudanese boys, environmental issues, and more. When her adult children came home at Christmas time, they found the house full of towels; in other years, it was shoes, bathrobes, etc. that she was collecting for the women’s shelter.

Through being an activist, she wanted to make a difference, and she also became an expert in pulling people she met into her activities. Many people in Boulder will tell how Doris “volunteered” them to participate in local activities and, through that, made new friends and became part of the Boulder community. Her community service was acknowledged over the years, and she was awarded the Stan Black Award, the Pacesetter Award for Community Service, the Boulder Senior Award, and named to the YWCA Hall of Fame.

For over 30 years, Doris worked at Wardenburg, where she enjoyed her good colleagues and meeting and talking with young people. She retired at 85, claiming that her good health was due to walking everywhere and having a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice every morning. Probably, her enthusiasm for life and her adventurous spirit contributed to her ability to stay active and involved even at such an advanced age.

Another passion was traveling in Europe, visiting almost every Gothic and Romanesque cathedral in Spain and France. She enjoyed traveling together with friends, her patient husband, her daughter Julie, and her spouse, Hilde Raastad. And while David served in the Army and was stationed in Germany, she and Julie joined him to watch the Oberammergau Passion play. At 90, she was invited to join some younger friends for a sailing trip along the Turkish coast, and that became her final international adventure.

Doris loved her house and garden on Bluebell Ave and stayed there as long as she was able to, but in 2019, she had to move to Frasier SCC, where she became a cherished resident and where she received excellent care from Frasier’s wonderful and supportive staff. Doris had a long and rich life, and believing that she was a child of God and was going to heaven, she was not afraid of dying. She will be remembered fondly by David, Julie, and Hilde, and by friends in Boulder and in Norway.

The funeral will be at 10:30 AM Saturday, Oct 4, at Trinity Lutheran Church, 2200 Broadway, Boulder, CO. Family and friends will gather in the church Fellowship Hall after the service to share memories.

In lieu of flowers, donations are welcome to Boulder Library Foundation (https://boulderlibraryfoundation.org/) or Trinity Lutheran Church (https://trinityboulder.org/).