Dolores "Dee" Keane

A Mass of Christian Burial will be offered on Monday, December 10, at 10 a.m. in St. Cassian Church, 187 Bellevue Avenue, Upper Montclair followed by the Interment at Immaculate Conception Cemetery, Upper Montclair. Visitation will be on Sunday from 2-6 pm at the LaMonica Memorial Home, 145 E. Mt. Pleasant Ave., Livingston.

Dolores Nance Dastole was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on April 14, 1928, to Joseph and Anne Dastole. She attended St. Brendan’s High School in Brooklyn, an experience she recalled fondly many times and went on to New York University, where she met her husband, James “Jim” Keane. She graduated in 1949 with a B.A. in Journalism and a minor in French and History.

Following her graduation, Dolores and Jim married and celebrated 36 years of marriage until Jim passed away in 1985. Over the years and with their growing family they enjoyed the experience of living overseas in Caracas, Venezuela, and Milan, Italy, before settling in Upper Montclair.

Dee became a popular teacher for nearly a decade at St. Cassian School, and then, in 1979, brought the joy she felt educating young people to Lacordaire Academy, Upper Montclair. It was there that she conveyed her love of Shakespeare, English Literature and the Humanities to countless young women and helped prepare and inspire them to go on to pursue their own college degrees. She was also the moderator of the school’s newspaper and literary magazine, Checkerboard and Zephyr.

A dedicated Eucharistic Minister at St. Cassian Church, Dee retired from teaching in 1997, and in 2011 was honored by Lacordaire with the Lumen Award for her dedication to scholarship and leadership.

She was the loving mother of Jim and his wife Barbara Jean, Ken and his wife the late Eileen, the Reverend Bill and his wife Lisa Bachiochi, and Jane and her husband Doug Truemner; cherished grandmother of Amanda, Billy, Nicolas, Erin, Niue, and the late Danny and Sean; and great-grandmother of Tennessee and Nikola.