Mary Dwyer
Mary Frances (Fran) Dwyer of Arvada, Colorado, 105, passed away peacefully on Sunday June 22, 2025. She was preceded in death by her loving husband Roger Francis Dwyer. Beloved mother to Pat (Linda), Mike (Anne), Michele Gargaro (Tracy) and Tim (Robin). Lovingly called Gran Fran by her grandchildren Patrick, Christopher, Lindsay, Ryan, Tony, Paul, Katie and Kelly, and great grandchildren Kaylin, Henry, Jack, Olivia, Oliver and Charlotte.
Born at home in rural Cherry County Nebraska on July 28,1919, she was the third of seven children born to Ruth (Richardson) Pearman and William Francis (Frank) Pearman. After growing up in the hardscrabble Nebraska sandhills, she attended Chadron State Teachers College and earned her teaching certificate. This allowed her to teach students up to 8th grade, She taught in a one room schoolhouse where all the students learned together. During the summers, she took courses to obtain additional certifications and higher pay. In the summer of 1939, she took a class called “Geographic Study Tour”, which was an extensive tour of the east coast, including the New York world’s fair and Washington DC. This opened her eyes to the world beyond the sandhills, and she would never be content to stay there.
During WWII, she took a job in Washington DC at the Selective Service headquarters. She lived in a boarding house with other girls and ate dinner at the Kenmore Inn, where she met Roger Dwyer from Syracuse NY, the love of her life. They enjoyed their courtship by discovering the art, theater and museums of the city. Roger enlisted in the marines and before he left for service, they agreed to get married when he came home from the war.
After Roger left for the service, she returned home to Nebraska and applied to study nursing through the Cadet Nurses Corps at a Catholic school of nursing in Alliance, Nebraska, about 100 miles from where she grew up. The course of study was demanding and when she finished the first year, she decided that nursing was not her calling. She invested in a drugstore in Seneca Nebraska and worked part time at the station hospital in Thedford, NE. For excitement, she and her business partner bought shares in an airplane (open cockpit WACO biplane) and took flying lessons.
Roger returned from the war and they were married on September 19, 1945. After completion of his military service, they settled first in Denver and then Arvada, where they remained for the rest of their lives.
Her family was her passion. Pat was born in 1947 while they were living in Virginia, and Mike came along in 1955 when they moved to Denver. Michele and Tim followed in quick succession in 1957 and 1959. Money was sufficient but not plentiful, but Fran knew how to manage and make the best of things. She was a wonderful teacher and provided one on one tutoring in her home. Most of the time her students’ families were financially strapped, so she operated on the barter system. In exchange for her help, the family had people to paint the house and attend to the gardens. The children’s favorite barter agreement was with a talented baker, who made wonderful cakes for birthdays and Easter.
Cooking was her “love language” and there was good food and good advice constantly dished out in her home kitchen to anyone who needed it. Her kindness showed and there was always a place for neighbors, especially neighbor children, in her kitchen, where she would provide comfort in the form of food, love, listening and good advice.
When her children grew up and moved out, she started a new set of hobbies. She was a voracious reader and loved history and art. To capitalize on this, she volunteered as a guide in the Denver Art Museum, Foothills Art Center in Golden and the Molly Brown House in Denver. Oil painting became a favorite pastime, and she was always trying to pass that love along to her children and neighbors. Many of her paintings now hang in the homes of family and friends.
She was a wonderful mother, who celebrated her children’s accomplishments and taught them how to deal with their failures. She made sure to teach everyone that the secret to happiness was to really find it inside yourself by accepting responsibility, making good decisions, loving fiercely and treating others with kindness.
A funeral service will be held on June 30 at 10:30am at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Arvada with a reception following at the church. Interment will be held at Ft. Logan on Tuesday July 1 at 10 am