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The Life of Dorothy Stephanie - Billeaud Crowley

DOROTHY STEPHANIE LOOK BILLEAUD CROWLEY, age 91, passed away peacefully in hospice of congestive heart failure on February 5, 2016.

Dolly, as she was known, was born in Honolulu, T. H. on June 30, 1924 to the marriage of Benjamin H. Nuole and Gertrude Lee Nuole. The divorced a few months after the birth. When Dolly was five, Gertrude married Kenneth L. Look and Ken adopted Dolly as his own daughter.

After local elementary school, Dolly attended four years of junior high at Sacred Heart Academy in Honolulu, graduating from Roosevelt High School in 1942. During WWII she met and married the love of her life, a handsome Marine from Louisiana name Emile St. Julien Billeaud. They settled in Louisiana and had four children during their twenty-nine years of marriage; Emile died in 1973.

In 1976 she married Charles Thomas “Chuck” Crowley who was, as she said, a good companion. They had thirty-one years of marriage, and he preceded her in death. In 2009 Dolly returned to Hawaii to live out her final years.

Once her children were no longer small, she worked as a hospital admitting clerk and then as bookkeeper for various companies. When she retired from office work she took care of children in people’s homes until worsening health forced her to quit.

Besides her husbands, Dolly was preceded in death by her daughter Stephanie Marie Billeaud Michel, of Louisiana, and a brother Roger L. Look and his wife Doris of Hawaii.

She is survived by children Lani Jeanne Billeaud Estep and her husband Albert, of Colorado; Kenneth Joseph Billeaud and his wife Therese, of New Hampshire; and Christopher Emile Billeaud, of Florida; also granddaughters Tanya Terese Billeaud and Michelle Renee Billeaud, of Florida; and great-grandchildren Cayden Michael Wesley Aadnesen and twins Alicia Marie and Charlize Renee Richard/Billeaud, all of Florida.

She is also survived by two aunts in Hawaii, Lydia Ah Sui and Beatrice Lee; her brother Michael L. Look and his wife Sarah, of Hawaii; brother-in-law James A. Billeaud and his wife Julia, and sister-in-law Betty Billeaud (widow of Thomas A.), of Louisiana; and numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins.

Dolly had a great zest for life, supported by her deep Catholic faith and lifelong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. She cherished her family and friends, and greatly enjoyed traveling to visit them or keeping in touch by letters or phone calls. She loved reading, gardening, sewing, and knitting and crocheting. Food was a serious hobby of hers: she collected cookbooks and watched televised cooking shows, and loved to try new recipes and kitchen equipment. In later years as gardening became too difficult, she let her rural backyard turn into a flowering meadow. She fed the birds, and became a keen observer of nature. This gave her even more to talk about!

Dolly was warm and gracious to all who knew her. For those of us who experienced her loving care, the strength of her spirit will never be forgotten. We will all miss her –as the song goes- “until we meet again”.

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