Mother Dorothy Juanita Ritchie

Dorothy Juanita Ritchie, a resident of Jacksonville, Florida, passed away peacefully in her sleep at home on Monday, November 10, 2025, after a brief illness following a recent diagnosis of metastatic cancer and a subsequent bout of pneumonia. She was 95.

Before moving to Florida, she and her husband, Joseph Edward Ritchie Sr., a master auto mechanic, raised a family in Chicago, then moved to Michigan City, Indiana, before retiring in Garten, West Virginia, where Mr. Ritchie was raised. She also spent four years in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with her youngest daughter, Nancy.

Mr. Ritchie died in 2018, and Mrs. Ritchie’s burial wish to be buried next to him in Fayetteville, West Virginia, is being fulfilled by the Ritchie & Johnson Funeral Home of Beckley, West Virginia. She also wished that there be no funeral service because the family was so widely scattered.

The Ritchies were longtime active members of the Lawndale Christian Reformed Church in Chicago and maintained their memberships long after moving from Chicago. Mr. Ritchie was a church elder, and Mrs. Ritchie drove the school bus that transported Lawndale children to the Des Plaines Christian School in Chicago’s northwest suburbs. She held on to her faith to the end and enjoyed daily devotions and Bible reading.

When they moved to Indiana, Mrs. Ritchie was employed in several capacities by the Sullair Company, which makes commercial air compressors.

Born Dorothy Juanita Lucas on October 30, 1930 in North Buxton, Ontario, she was the youngest of seven daughters born to Ernest Arthur and Juanita Merene Lucas, the fourth generation born in that historic community. She was fiercely proud of her Canadian heritage.

She is survived by a son, Joseph Edward II; two daughters, Antonia Maria and Nancy Elaine; two sisters, Maxine Barksdale and Velma Peoples; three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Services will be handled by:

Ritchie and Johnson Funeral Parlor | 748 S. Fayette Street | Beckley, West Virginia 25801 | 304-252-4115

Sarah L. Carter's Funeral Home Northside is serving the Family.

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