Dorothy La Vonne Peters

Dorothy La Vonne Peters

IllinoisConfirmed

Kristin's maternal grandmother · 1926–2022

Born

12 February 1926, Chicago, Illinois

Died

13 August 2022

Buried

Mount Olivet Cemetery, Fort Worth

Parents

Benjamin LaRoy "Pete" Peters Sr. & Gertie Selma Selland

Sources

5

Images

1

Research status

Research status: parents CONFIRMED — Benjamin LaRoy Peters and Gertie Selma Selland Confirmed S36S40S41

Life in the order the records give it

Birth1926

Born 12 February 1926, Chicago, Illinois; raised in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for her first eighteen years S36

Death2022

Died 13 August 2022, aged 96, at Round Rock, Williamson County, Texas

the funeral home's own dateline, which is a statement of residence at death, not of burial city S36

Burial2022

Buried Mount Olivet Cemetery, Fort Worth, beside her husband; graveside service 22 August 2022 S36

Residence—

A longtime resident of Fort Worth

"they moved to Ft. Worth where she lived for over 70 years" S36

Arrival—

She and her sister Shirley made several trips to Norway, "homeland of their maternal grandparents"

the obituary predicting the Selland surname before it was found S36. Family testimony Graded as what it is. This is a sentence a family wrote for a funeral programme, not a record. It is a lead on the Selland line — it points at a Norwegian parish and a generation, and it has already been half-borne-out by the Røldal out-migration entry S75 — but no document has yet been read that says which grandparents, or from where. It is not Confirmed and is not written here as though it were.

Death—

Five siblings of her own, named in the same obituary: LaRoy Peters, Betty Sanders, Shirley Peltier, Marlene Jacobs and Eileen Blacketer S36. Their own lines are not worked here.

There was never a collision risk here, and that is unusual. "Dorothy Walker" is a common name, and the research brief warned against attaching one on name alone. No inference was needed: her obituary names the client household outright — her granddaughter Kristin and Earl of Austin, and their three children by name S36. The subject was identified by her own family, in print.

⚠️ The "died in Austin" discrepancy, resolved. The family's account was that she died in Austin; FindAGrave's copy of the obituary gives no place at all. The original publisher's copy carries the dateline "ROUND ROCK" — twenty miles north of downtown Austin, in the same metro, and where her grandson lives. The family's account is right; "Austin" is Round Rock S36. The memory-care facility itself is Not found in any document and was not searched for — private medical detail about a recently deceased person, adding nothing to the genealogy.

Who her obituary names as surviving her. It is a family-written survivor list and it is the reason several people on this page can be tied to each other at all. Her three daughters, in its own words: "LaVonne Danielson of Austin, TX, Marilyn (Phillip) McGovern of Nashville, TN, and C.J. (Ed) Farris of Arlington, TX" — and her sisters Shirley Peltier, Marlene Jacobs and Eileen Blacketer, with a brother-in-law, Romie Sanders. Her four grandchildren, in the obituary's own sentence: "Brad Caffey (Erin) of Round Rock, TX, Jessica (Martin) Carrier of McKinney, TX, Kristin (Earl) Proeger of Austin, TX and David (Marci) Peters of Nashville, TN." That sentence is what welds this record's two halves together from the published side — Brad and Kristin as grandchildren of one woman, in print, not inferred from a surname S36.

The obituary is published here in full, as a page image, and unredacted. It names seven of the next generation — Ava and Grant Peters; Preston and Scarlett Caffey; and Earl's own Maia, Evelyn and Axel — alongside the family's towns. Some of them are minors. This record's rule publishes a minor's name and nothing else; this page image is Earl's explicit per-item exception to that rule, made on 25 September 2026, and it covers this one document only S36.

Family parents, marriages, children, siblings

Names1947

Her maiden name is PETERS. Walker was her married name. The Texas Birth Index names her as "Dorothy La Vonne Peters" on her own daughter's 1947 birth record

a state vital record, not an obituary S39

Parents—

Daughter of Benjamin LaRoy "Pete" Peters Sr. and Gertie Selma Selland S36S40S41

Photos & documents 0 photos · 1 document

Documents (1)

Documents · 1 page image all documents

Retrieved from the UNT Libraries' Portal to Texas History, or — for the University of Texas Cactus yearbooks — from Texas ScholarWorks. Each thumbnail opens the full page scan, which can also be downloaded. The quoted text is the OCR that ships with the scan, copied verbatim; the page image is the authority.

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Obituary — Dorothy LaVonne Walker, née Peters (1926–2022)

Obituary · 13 August 2022

Confirmed because Funeral-home obituary published by the firm that handled the burial; birth date, death date and parents all match the existing tree record for Dorothy LaVonne Peters (person 272802987506).

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In the record Generation 3 — Kristin's grandparents

1. S36Obituary of Dorothy LaVonne Peters Walker (12 February 1926 – 13 August 2022), Greenwood Funeral Home, Fort Worth — greenwoodfuneralhomes.com; the same text transcribed on FindAGrave memorial 242876604, Mount Olivet Cemetery, Fort Worth. Family-written. It names her husband "Melvin Walker," her parents "Benjamin 'Pete' and Selma Peters," her three daughters, her Chicago birth and Sioux Falls upbringing, the Norway trips, and — decisively — "Kristin (Earl) Proeger of Austin, TX" among her grandchildren. ⚠️ Only the funeral home's own copy carries the "ROUND ROCK" dateline; the FindAGrave transcription drops it. The funeral home's page is published in full in the Documents grid (Earl's per-item exception, 25 Sep 2026).
2. S39Texas Birth Index 1903–1997 and the 1950 US Census, Tarrant County, via FamilySearch in a signed-in session. "Clare La Vonne Walker — Birth [date withheld], Tarrant, Texas — Parents Clarence Melvin Walker, Dorothy La Vonne Peters," with her sisters Marilyn Dorothy and Carolyn Jane indexed to the same couple; and the 1950 census household at White Settlement, Tarrant County. The state vital record that supplies Dorothy's maiden name, independently of any obituary. ⚠️ All three daughters are living, so the birth dates on these index rows are redacted here — the citation is reproduced as it was read, minus the dates the privacy rule withholds.
3. S40Obituaries of Dorothy's siblings — LaRoy J. "Pete" Peters (d. 25 January 2021), Miller Funeral Home, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, millerfh.com; and Betty Jane Sanders (d. 10 September 2013), Pitts Chapel, Bolivar, Missouri, via Legacy.com. A third, Shirley Darlene Peltier's (May 2026), names the same parents. Two funeral homes, two states, eight years apart, both spelling the mother's maiden name Selland. Betty's names "Dorothy Walker of Fort Worth, TX" as a sibling, which is what proves it is this family and not a same-name collision.
4. S41FindAGrave memorials 70460076 and 70460158 — Benjamin L. Peters (1905–1993), plot Block C Lot 16 Grave E2, and Selma Selland Peters (1903–1991), Grave E1, the adjacent plot — Lakeview Cemetery, Clear Lake, Deuel County, South Dakota. Headstone transcriptions. Benjamin's SSA death date and the stone agree exactly. Family links on FindAGrave are contributor-asserted and are corroboration only; the obituaries at S40 carry the finding on their own.
5. S75Røldal parish register — G. Udflyttede (those moved out), folio 203, year 1889. Entry no. 3: Mons Thorsen Selland, birth year 1868, destination "Dakota, Amerika", certificates issued for birth, baptism and confirmation. Read by eye at full resolution. The register names no ship, no port and no sailing date — the Naar udflyttet column carries the bare year. A Norwegian out-migration entry is a clerical hand-off between parishes, not a passenger list, and it should not be expected to yield a crossing. The birth year here and the birth date in S74 are the same man.