Carol Loella Dougherty

Carol was born on June 17, 1942 to Norma and Clinton Anderson on a farm five miles east of Minnewaukan, N.D. During the winter months, her trip to school was in a horse-drawn sleigh. Her mother warmed bricks in the oven and placed them near their feet to keep them warm on the ride to school. She loved many aspects of the family farm, especially exploring the groves of trees near their home and raising a lamb named Suzie and her beloved Jersey cow, Buttercup. Carol loved raising the animals and was the only girl in the boys 4-H club, showing animals at the Benson County Fair. For farmwork, Carol would sometimes invite friends to join her. The 12-year-old Carol drove the farm truck to gather the milk cows. She savored the landscape of their Benson County farm and felt it provided her a birthday treat each June when she would spy the Wild Prairie Rose blossoming with its five pink petals and yellow stamens in the center. It’s the state’s official flower.

College and career

Carol was a delegate to North Dakota Girls State before her senior year in high school, something she recalled pushed her past a shyness that perhaps she noticed more than others. After graduating in a class of 12 students at Minnewaukan High School in 1960, she attended the University of North Dakota. Carol graduated from UND in 1964 with a bachelor's degree major in speech correction. She headed east to Utica, N.Y., for her career in speech therapy, joining the Utica Cerebral Palsy Clinic, Kernan School. It was a year of adventure in Upstate New York. Her mother Norma and a college friend, Diane, came to visit and the trio ventured to New York City and the 1964 World’s Fair. At the Maryland booth of the fair, she dined on crab for the first time. In the city, she delighted in visiting Central Park, walking down Broadway and venturing to the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State building with her mother and friend. More than 40 years later, it’s the type of adventure she would replicate many times over when she and her husband, Jim explored Egypt, Honduras, Slovakia and central Europe with their son Brian and his wife Elsa, who lived in those locales the past 11 years.

Carol was offered a one-year graduate program at Geneseo State University of New York in 1965, but while home in North Dakota for a visit, was offered a job in a community in northeastern North Dakota in the same region where she grew up.

Marriage and move west

Carol returned to North Dakota in 1965, landing a job in Lakota, N.D., During Carol’s first week as a speech and language therapist for Nelson County, she was racing down the stairs at the school when she caught a glimpse of a man she described as “an adorable young man with a crew cut and wearing a red coach’s windbreaker jacket.” He was a young gentleman from Fordville, N.D., who was teaching math, physical education and coaching. His name was Jim Dougherty and the two were married on July 2, 1966, in Minnewaukan at St. Mark’s Catholic Church followed by a reception several blocks at away in the American Legion Club. They took a week-long honeymoon to the lake country of Minnesota and visited the Twin Cities, including some Minnesota Twins baseball games. Summer school and long vacations were a pattern that would continue for the two teachers for decades. The newlyweds traveled west later that summer to Glendive, Mont., where Jim assured his wife that they would only stay a few years and then move back closer to home in eastern North Dakota. That very first day, they met people who offered a furnished apartment rental. Those folks became friends and many more joined that list as Glendive became their home for the next 38 years. It was in that eastern Montana town where they raised three children, worked in careers until retirement and then enjoyed their retirement years with many friends, community activities and travel.

Home

Carol's career in Glendive was in speech therapy, first working with adults with severe mental disabilities at Eastmont Human Services Center, a state institution in Glendive. It was there where she job shared with another speech therapist, who also had young children. They would later do a similar job share with another service provider, continuing their professional and personal friendship. But as their children Mike, Brian and Ann arrived, Carol chose to stay at home for their early years. In 1971, she was part of a group of mothers in Glendive who helped establish Christopher Robin Nursery School, which is the longest-running parent cooperative preschool in the state of Montana. The group was spearheaded by a founding group of moms while their kids were taking swimming lessons at the Glendive pool in Lloyd Square Park. Later in the 1970s, Carol became the director of religious education at Sacred Heart Parish in Glendive. Not all parishioners or clergy were certain about a Lutheran convert to Catholicism leading the religious education efforts, but over time she won them over with her work effort, abilities and faith. She and Jim also taught high school religion classes during this period, much to the delight of their children, who would perch nearby and listen in to the discussions. In the late 1970s, she joined Prairie View Special Services, a special education cooperative. After three years, her health was declining with what was eventually diagnosed as ulcerative colitis and she wrapped up her work at Prairie View. In about 1983, Carol began to move back toward her chosen profession and was a library assistant at Dawson County High School, being able to work at the same site as Jim and see her children as they began their high school years. When a speech therapy job opened in the school system, Carol was selected and began a 15-year career working with students. Often based at Jefferson Elementary, she would visit other students in the school system.

During the years when her children were growing up in Glendive, many activities revolved around their activities in sports for every season, school work and summer adventures back to North Dakota, California, New Mexico, Colorado and much of the western United States and its national parks. A spiritual aspect was a key element of their upbringing whether it was traveling to Native American reservations for religious celebrations, attending Benedictine abbey retreats at Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey in Pecos, N.M., Assumption Abbey in Richardton, N.D., or taking much of the family to daily Mass in the summer.

She also loved to cook, providing her family with well-rounded meals, sometimes quickly assembled on busy nights or other times nurtured all day for a full, savory meal on a Sunday evening before the week began. After her kids left home as adults, she would pass along memorable recipes -- some from her own mother -- penned in her own handwriting on cards that noted they were from the “Kitchen of Mom.” Some of those meals fuel her grandkids today.

By the early 1990s, state requirements changed for licensed speech pathologists, so Carol went back to college to obtain her master’s degree, living 400 miles away from Jim to complete her work at Minnesota State University, Moorhead. One summer, she and daughter Ann were apartment roommates in Moorhead, while Ann prepared for her last year of college. It was a challenge for her after several attempts to obtain her master’s degree because she was living with the physical symptoms and treatment for colitis. But she did it! Her family visited when they could during that time and she used her faith, strength and curiosity to strive as a 51-year-old college student in 1993.

Carol spent nine years teaching in the Glendive school system, mostly based at Jefferson School. She had a strong group of fellow teachers at Jefferson, whose friendships remained long after she retired in 2002. During her teaching years, she was among the leaders in the Glendive Education Association, the teacher’s union, including a term as president. It was a leadership role that gave her great pride and honor to represent her fellow teaching professionals, who were entrusted by the community to teach, challenge and guide Glendive’s students.

Retirement

After retirement, Carol didn’t truly retire immediately, but manage to cobble together a continuation of her professional career by providing speech and language services to stroke patients at the Glendive Medical Center, in nursing homes, and many school communities across eastern Montana including Wibaux, Baker, Forsyth and Rosebud. Her contracts took her to the Glendive Veteran’s Home, as well as the St. Labre Indian School in Ashland, Montana. In each place, she was adored by her students and their families, often being invited to cookouts and dinners in their homes far out in the vast ranch and Badlands country of eastern Montana.

But she and Jim did eventually retire in full, because her health created more challenges as she developed Crohn’s Disease. But the retirement allowed them time to travel to see their children in Colorado, Minnesota or foreign countries. They also enjoyed trips overseas with their friends to France, Italy, Norway and Sweden. They were out and about at community events to support community organizations, strengthen friendships and make new friends. Their vast group of friends only grew in retirement as they stayed involved in community and political affairs, always with the focus that Carol recognized was important with all people: fairness, equality and empathy.

Grandchildren became part of their lives, as did new pets after the long beloved Skeeter dog passed away. Roo and Jasper were the new dogs that found their affection. The grandchildren of Jack, Logan, Katherine, Martha and Katerina opened their lives to more love and enjoyment and continued right through to Carol’s final moments.

Colorado home

After spending several winters in Greeley closer to family, Jim and Carol sold their home in Glendive and moved to Greeley in 2014. It brought them close to daughter Ann and her family. Carol enjoyed writing classes at the University of Northern Colorado, where she learned and was guided in writing her memoir. They also enjoyed the bible studies and faith community that they joined at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greeley, a special place to celebrate Easter and Christmas when their family gathered for the holidays. Carol, who was a relaxed sports fan, became a true believer in the Colorado Rockies and the Denver Broncos, often reciting lineups, favorite players and other noteworthy team tidbits not witnessed since her boys were young sports fanatics in the 1970s. A trip to Coors Field was always a treat and her entire family and grandchildren attended a Rockies game Aug. 10, 2015, against the Seattle Mariners on Dollar Dog Night.

Survivors include Jim, their three children, Mike and his girlfriend Michelle of Rochester, Minn.; Brian and his wife Elsa of Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Ann and her husband Vincent of Evans; a brother, Harry and his wife Margaret and their two children, Eric and Cory of Weatherford, Texas; five grandchildren, Jack, Katherine and Martha of Rochester, Minn., and Logan and Katerina of Evans; and two nephews, Patrick and Sean Dougherty of California.

The funeral is at 11:30 a.m., Thursday, Jan. 19 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greeley. Visitation is from 5-7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 18 at Stoddard Funeral Home in Greeley.