Delora Belnap Wright

Delora “Dory” Rae Avondet Belnap Wright

September 18, 1933 ~ March 4, 2017

Delora “Dory” Rae Avondet Belnap Wright passed peacefully from this life on Saturday, March 4, 2017. She was born on September 18, 1933, the youngest daughter of Italian immigrants, Lami and Millie (Combe) Avondet, and was raised on the family’s homestead in Ogden, Utah where the Dee Event Center now stands.

After graduating from Weber High School she joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, married Ellis Darwin Belnap and soon thereafter started their family welcoming her children, Janet, Judy, Jeff, Brad, Angela, and Blake to this life. They settled in Uintah and later divorced. She married widower, George Ronald “Ron” Wright, Sr. on April 18, 1973 in the Salt Lake LDS Temple, and became mother to an additional eight children, Keri, Melanie, Ron, David, Derick, Laurie, Jacqueline, and Stephanie. Ron and Dory later welcomed another son, Brandon, to the family circle to complete their own version of “Yours, Mine and Ours.” A few short years after they were married, the family moved to San Juan Bautista, CA and later to Grants Pass, OR, St. George, UT and finally back to the family home in Ogden.

Dory spent many hours serving in various capacities within the Church including Relief Society President and most recently as an ordinance worker in the Ogden LDS Temple which she enjoyed so much. Most of all, she was a devoted mother to her children and was loved by each and every one of them. She was a great cook and was known for her kindness, homespun wisdom, unique idioms and figures of speech and good common sense. Children, grandchildren and great grandchildren loved to sit and listen to her stories of growing up on the farm and the wonderful life she had known as a girl with no plumbing, no electricity, throwback outhouse, and her daily adversary…“that dang rooster”.

Since moving back to Ogden she frequently enjoyed attending various sporting events in which her grandchildren and great-grandchildren played, and was often their best (and loudest) fan. She was fearless in the face of life’s challenges and lived a full life with many adventures. Like the headwaters of a mighty river the effect of her influence has been incalculably diffusive, especially in the lives of her posterity which number 15 children, 64 grandchildren and 92 great-grandchildren.

She is survived by her children: Janet (Jeff) Mead, Judy (Brian) Melaney, Keri (Carolee), Melanie (Barry) Cohen, Ron (Pam), Brad (Donna), David (Cynthia), Derick, Angela, Laurie (Craig) Tippets, Jacqueline (Kevin) Shirley, Blake (Amy), Stephanie (Dustin) Shaw, Brandon; her sister Linda Stoker D’Hulse, and sister-in-law, Barbara Avondet.

She was preceded in death by her husband, George Ronald Wright; a son-in-law, Barry Cohen; a granddaughter, Kalena Wright; great-grandson, Lucas Brandt Mead; her parents and siblings, Joe, Martha, Mike, Eva, Enna, and Elma.

Funeral services will be held on Monday, March 6, 2017 at 11 a.m. at the Meadowbrook Ward, 373 15th Street. Friends may visit with family on Sunday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Lindquist’s Ogden Mortuary, 3408 Washington Blvd., and Monday from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. at the church.

Interment, Lindquist’s Washington Heights Memorial Park, 4500 Washington Blvd.