Obituary of Thelma Feldhamer

Thelma Lee Feldhamer Eulogy By Raquel J. Alexander Thelma Leah Feldhamer was born on May 10, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York. She excelled in school and the arts, skipping a grade in primary school. I still have the painting she did of horses in a field. It was a vision she had had in a dream. When choosing a career path, Mom’s older relatives urged her to be a teacher or a nurse, the only two apparent options for women in the era. But Mom wanted to be an architect and with her father’s encouragement and blessing, she attended Cooper Union in New York on a full scholarship, graduating with a degree in Architecture. In 1972 she received her license as an Architect in the State of Colorado and became one of a handful of female architects in the country. My father, Carl Feldhamer, born in Hoboken, New Jersey, served in the Air Force at Lowry in Denver where he fell in love with Colorado. He later attended the University of Denver for his bachelor’s degree, and returned to New York for his Law Degree at NYU. There he met my mother at the synagogue during Yom Kippur and they married in 1950. My father and mother wanted to give their children, Mark, and me, a Jewish education but there was no elementary Jewish school on Long Island at the time. So they helped to start the Mid Island Hebrew Day School where I attended 1st through 5th grade. In 1963 we moved to Colorado where my father embraced the Colorado lifestyle and took the family camping, fishing, skiing, and horseback riding. Both of my parents volunteered for the Civil Air Patrol, based at Buckley Air Base. My mother was a Lieutenant and my father was a Colonel of the Black Sheep Squadron, which he started. He led it to become the largest Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol in the United States. Mom learned to co-pilot my father’s plane and went on many trips with him. My mother loved animals and our house always had a menagerie, dogs, cats, fish, birds, hamsters. Mom was one of the strongest women I ever knew. She raised two children, cooked all of the meals, prepared all of the Jewish holidays, sewed my beautiful clothes including my coats, did all of the ironing, and worked full time as an architect. There are many buildings in the Denver area that she designed including beautiful custom homes, office buildings, post offices, warehouses, churches, and even the largest enclosed shopping mall in the world at the time: Cinderella City. Building contractors would seek her out because they liked her designs. Mom was brilliant, steady, stable, and hard-working. I never saw her break down under stress. She never drank, never did drugs, went to work every day and was at every school event. She was a very active volunteer with Hadassah and served as the Hadassah chapter treasurer for many years. She is loved by her children Mark and myself, her grandchildren, Shane, Morgan, and Meryl, and her great grandchild Martin Carl. We will all miss her. When we faced tough situations, my mother would say, “The first 100 years are the hardest.” She always carried on. Dementia took its toll on my mother over the last few years. It is a devastating disease. She was an avid reader, would always do crossword puzzles and excelled at Scrabble. It was so sad to see her mind being destroyed. But she always recognized me and remembered my name. She received excellent care at the Cherry Creek Nursing Center in Aurora. She was in hospice care for the last few days. Finally, on Sat. July 21, 2018 at 3:18 pm, she took her last breath. It was God’s Grace that I was present with her during her last hours and for her last breath. She died peacefully. May she find bliss and happiness in heaven.