Dolores Calway lived nearly 97 years, long enough to see generations grow, to watch her family spread and settle, to become the matriarch everyone turned to. She died on March 23, 2026, in Bristol, Connecticut, just weeks shy of her 97th birthday. She was the eldest of three sisters, the last of her generation, and the keeper of a family history that stretched back to another time.
She was born on April 10, 1929, to Albert and Rose Fiorillo, at the dawn of the Great Depression. She grew up in Bristol, attended local schools, and graduated from Bristol High School in 1947, a young woman with her whole life ahead of her. A year later, on June 12, 1948, she married Clayton “Clay” Calway. They would spend 58 years together, building a life rooted in the same town where they had both grown up.
In 1953, they welcomed their only son, Steven. Dolores became a mother with the same devotion she brought to everything else. She and Clay were active in Steven’s life, supporting him when he joined the Armed Forces, traveling to North Carolina to visit him, filling their home with the kind of love that made distance feel smaller. She spoke often of those trips, of the pride she felt in her son, of the family they were building.
Dolores loved her home, her town, the people who surrounded her. She didn’t venture far because everything she needed was close by. Her family was her world, and she was its center. To everyone who knew her, she was Do-Do or Auntie Do, names that carried the weight of affection, of history, of a woman who had been present for every important moment. She was the one who remembered the stories, who kept the traditions alive, who held the family together through the decades.
She was predeceased by her parents, Albert and Rose; her husband of 58 years, Clayton; her sisters, Marlene Fiorillo and Mildred “Millie” Romano; her nephews, Mike Romano, David Sherman, and Jeffrey Sherman; and her niece, Judy Sherman. She outlived them all, carrying their memories with her until the very end. Now she joins them, the last of her generation finally home.
Dolores was 96 years old, nearly 97. She was a daughter, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a matriarch. She lived through depression and war, through boom times and quiet years. She watched her son grow, her nieces and nephews marry, her family expand. She held onto the stories, passed them down, made sure the people who came after knew where they came from.
She is gone now, but the family she built remains. The traditions she kept will be carried forward. The love she gave will be felt for generations. In Bristol, where she lived her entire life, where she married and raised her son and became the woman everyone called Do-Do, her memory will not fade. She lived a long life, a full life, a life that mattered. And now she rests, the last of her generation, finally at peace.