Dolores Anne Petersen

Dolores Anne Petersen

May 30, 1929 – February 21, 2026

Dolores Anne Kowalski was born in Taylor, PA (near Scranton) on May 30, 1929, the daughter of Walter Kowalski and Anna Yaremczuk. Her early years were not without adversity, which she not only overcame but gave her the spirit and love for family that grounded her for the rest of her life. Her father died in a car accident when she was 5. So her mother could go back to work, she lived with a very close uncle and aunt for some of her childhood.

Dolores put herself through college. First, at the University of Pennsylvania and then NYU receiving scholarships. She had a love of languages and spoke fluent Russian, Polish, French and Latin. To help pay for tuition, she waitressed at a restaurant where she would meet the love of her life, Robert (Bob) Decoster Petersen.

He was a college student at Cornell, and a management intern at the restaurant where she worked in New York City. When he first asked her out, she turned him down, not being sure about his prospects. But the other waitresses kept telling her she should give him a chance. She did and the rest is history. They married on May 9, 1953, at the Naval Chapel in Newport, RI. They enjoyed 68 wonderful years of marriage together living in Charleston SC where Bob served in the Navy, then Long Island during their working years and back to Bluffton and Hilton Head SC for their retirement.

During their working years on Long Island, Bob would start a successful food brokerage business, Atlantic Marketing Forces, where Dolores served as the office and operations manager from the start of the company in the late seventies until it was sold in the early nineties.

An interesting vacation they took in the sixties was a group tour to Russia when it was behind the iron curtain. Because Dolores spoke Russian, her skills proved to be of tremendous benefit for the group in communication with the locals and the authorities. Her character was one of support and guidance for others throughout her life.

Family was very important to Dolores. Bob passed in January 2022 at 91 in Hilton Head. She is survived by three children: Rob, Diane (Mark Parmerlee) and Donna (Greg Raphael), six grandchildren: Blake and Sean (Madeleine) Petersen, Michael (Pam) and Matthew (Lauren) Parmerlee, and Ryan (Colleen) and Shannon Raphael, and five great grandchildren: Augustus Petersen, Juliette Parmerlee and Lucy, Charlotte and Liam Raphael. They were the center of her universe, who she was there for and who were there for her. There will be a private ceremony for family only at Saul’s Funeral Home in Bluffton.