Dolores Mary Foley Monastesse, 97, of Derry, New Hampshire passed away on Saturday, March 1, 2025 at her home of sixty-four years. She was born on December 18, 1927 in Lawrence, Massachusetts to the late Francis X. and Elaine D. Foley.

Dolores, who affectionately went by many different names including Babe, Dee, and Dee Dee, was raised in Methuen, Massachusetts in a large family with four sisters and two brothers. She graduated from St. Mary's High School and continued her education at Lawrence General Nursing School. While attending nursing school, she was a member of the U.S. Cadet Nursing Corps. She went on to work as a nurse, first at Lawrence General Hospital, then at Alexander Eastman Hospital in Derry, New Hampshire. Throughout her life, Dolores was a member of the St. Mary's Alumni Association and a member of the Larwence General Hospital Alumni Association.

A devote Catholic, Dolores alongside her husband, Bob, helped found the Holy Cross Church in Derry, New Hampshire.

All her life, Dolores has been devoted to her family. Early in life she helped guide her siblings. When she married and had a family of her own, she raised her two children, while being an aunt to so many others. Later in life, she discovered the great joy of doting on her three grandchildren. Most recently, Dolores welcomed the first great-grandchild into the family, who continues the time-honored tradition of calling her Dee Dee.

In addition to her parents, Dolores is also predeceased by her loving husband, Robert Monastesse, her sisters Dorothy Foley, Mary Valcke, and Patricia Jackson, and her brothers Francis Foley and Phillip Foley.

Dolores is survived by her son Philip Monastesse of Concord, New Hampshire, her daughter Martha Bemis and her husband Peter of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, her sister Rita Gingras and her husband Gerald of Naples, Florida, her grandson Zachary Bemis of Southborough, Massachusetts, her grandson Tyler Bemis and his girlfriend Juliana of Upton, Massachusetts, her granddaughter Micaela Costa and her husband Josh of Westport, Massachusetts, and her great-grandson Jonah Costa also of Westport, Massachusetts.

A Funeral Mass will be held on Thursday March 6th, 2025, at 10 AM, at St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church, 26 Crystal Avenue Derry, NH 03038. Interment will follow at Forest Hill Cemetery in East Derry, NH. Following the conclusion of the service, family and friends are invited to join a celebration of Dolores's life at her home of 30 Thorton Street in Derry, NH 03038. To leave an online message of condolence, please visit: www.carrierfuneralhome.com. Arrangements are under the care of the Carrier Family Funeral Home, 38 Range Road, Windham, NH 03087.

Ever the reader, Dolores left a handwritten copy of Helen Lowrie Marshall's poem Afterglow, which is reproduced below in what we believe would have been her wishes:

Afterglow

I'd like the memory of me

to be a happy one.

I'd like to leave an afterglow

of smiles when life is done.

I'd like to leave an echo

whispering softly down the ways,

of happy times and laughing

times and bright and sunny days.

I'd like the tears of those who grieve,

to dry before the sun;

of happy memories that I

leave when life is done.