Velma "Babe" West

VELMA “BABE” WEST Funeral services for former area resident, Velma “Babe” West will be held at 11 a.m. Monday, November 7, 2005 at the Arriola Community Center. Mr. Chandler Chaffin will officiate. Interment will follow at the Fairview Cemetery in Yellow Jacket. Visitation has been set for Monday, one hour prior to the service time at the Community Center. Velma was born the daughter of Sheldon and May (Stevenson) Reed on March 25, 1922 on the old family homestead in Yellow Jacket, Colo. She passed away at Mercy Medical Center on Friday, November 4, 2005 at the age of 83. Velma attended school at Fairview and Four Corners. She married Eldred “Buck” West in April of 1940 and to this union Virginia, LaDonna, Janice, Shelley, and Dean were born. The family lived in Cortez, Dove Creek, and in 1965, they moved to Wyoming. Buck passed away in 1986 and Velma moved to Durango to be near her children. She loved to spend time fishing, hunting, playing cards, dancing and she was a wonderful cook who loved to feed all of her friends and family. Surviving Velma are her children, Virginia Johnson and husband, Gerald of Durango, LaDonna Smith and husband, Larry of Bloomfield, N.M., Janice Diamond of Houston, Tex., Shelley St.Onge and husband, Paul of Casper, Wyo., and Dean West and wife, Cindy of Craig, Colo., her brother, John Reed and wife, Esther of Cortez; ten grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and her companion of seventeen years, Pete Black and his family. Velma was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Eldred “Buck” West; and her siblings, Thornton Reed, Clarence Reed, Jack Reed, Orrie Reed, Joe Reed, Bill Reed, and Thelma Duncan. Memorial contributions may in made in Velma’s memory to either the Arriola Community Center or the Dove Creek V.F.W. Post# 5181.