Delores Geraldine “Jerry” Henderson

Delores Geraldine “Jerry” Henderson, of Apache Junction, Arizona, passed away on August 11, 2024. She was 101 years old. She is survived by her son William Henderson, Jr., of Lompoc, California, her daughter Deborah Henderson and son-in-law, Donald Fassinger of Tempe, Arizona, and nieces Amy Sutherland of Manassus, Virginia, Alma Magnussen, Christine Elmore, and Karen Magnussen of Jacksonville, FL. There will be a private service on Monday, August 19, at Bunker Family Funeral Home in Mesa, AZ, after which she will be transported to Baltimore, Maryland to be laid to rest next to her late husband of 54 years, William Henderson, Sr. at Holly Hill Cemetery in Middle River, MD. In early October, the family will hold a memorial gathering in Tempe, AZ, to celebrate Jerry’s long life and give those who knew her the chance to remember the impression she made in their lives.

Jerry was born in Bluefield, West Virginia on June 14, 1923 (what would one day become Flag Day) to Blanche and Thomas Carlyle Sutherland. She is predeceased by her parents and her two brothers, Thomas Carlyle (TC) Sutherland, Jr., and Harry Sutherland.

Jerry attended Beaver High School in Bluefield, and dated William Henderson until he joined the army in 1939. Jerry traveled to Baltimore during the war to work as a “Rosie the Riveter” at the Eastern Aircraft Plant building airplanes for the military. When the war ended, she married “Bill” Henderson (an amateur boxer known as “One Punch Henderson”) on June 5, 1947, after he served in the Hawaiian Islands during the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Jerry and Bill moved to Maryland where Bill worked for 50 years as a union bricklayer and Jerry began creating their home. They settled in Dundalk, MD, where they raised their two children, and lived happily together for 54 years until Bill’s passing in 2000. Both avid bowlers, they bowled in several leagues over the next few decades and spent many happy summer days at various area beaches (Inverness beach, Bay Shore, and Ocean City, MD), and happy nights out dancing.

Jerry was always surprised that she lived such a long life given a very shaky start. When she was 18 months old, during a particularly bad case of pleurisy pneumonia, her family doctor, Dr. Vass, performed what was then considered a risky and ground-breaking surgery called an empyema. The surgeon removed part of a rib and placed a drain in her left lung. Jerry was always amazed that she survived, in part, as she liked to tell it, because the doctor, snapped his fingers, and told her parents he “didn’t expect her to live longer than that!” Over the next hundred years later, she thumbed her nose at his prediction.

In 1999, thanks to her son, William, Jerry had the opportunity to accompany her husband to Hawaii and visit all the places Bill told her about during his time in the army. Their trip to Hawaii with William was one of the highlights of their later years.

Three years after her husband passed, Jerry moved to Apache Junction, Arizona, so she could be closer to her daughter. She set up camp in the Dolce Vita Retirement Community and joined several of their organizations. For many years she was a member of the Solos Club and the Red Hat Society, and participated in ceramics classes, trips to local casinos and dinner theater evenings. She enjoyed shooting pool with her family, swimming in the community pool and basking in the Arizona sun. She was always the fiery little red head, often driven by the “fear of missing out.” She was funny and fun-loving, a surprisingly adventurous eater (for a Southern girl), and always ready to participate in whatever social events cropped up. The hardest part of aging for her was outliving most of her friends and family and losing the ability to stay in her house. She was able to maintain her independence in Dolca Vita for 16 years, in large part, thanks to the kindness and generosity of her dear neighbors who helped her, increasingly, as her memory and her mobility began to fail. In March of 2020, at the age of 97, just as Covid shut down the world, she moved to Tempe to live with her daughter and son-in-law.

She entered Hospice at Home care in 2022 and met some of the nicest people who helped her and her family create a safe and loving space for her to finish her journey.

On Sunday, August 11, 2024, Jerry passed peacefully in her sleep. Even though everyone knew her passing was imminent, a world without her sweet spirit and beautiful smile is a little lonelier and emptier place than it had been for the past 101 years.