Dorothy Kavka

Dorothy Kavka (née Cooperman) was born into a large, loving matriarchal Jewish family, and with her sister Myra grew up on the north side of Chicago. Her father Saul Cooperman was an immigrant from Manchester UK who doted on his two girls. Her mother Evelyn was a Chicago native who imparted a strong work ethic to her two daughters. Dorothy was a fierce protector of her sister who often told stories about how her big sister looked after her by chasing away the school bullies.

Dorothy graduated from Senn High School in Chicago where she was a proud member of the Future Teachers of America. She attended the University of Chicago, the first member of her family to attend college, majoring in English literature. It was there that she met Stephen Kavka, at a student activity to plan the University’s Festival of the Arts. After college, Dorothy attained a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin in English literature, and then returned to Chicago to take up a position teaching high school English – first as a trainee at Mather High School and then as a full-time teacher at Tuley High School (now Roberto Clemente HS) and later Pestalozzi-Froeble Teachers College (now part of National Louis University).

During this time she married Stephen and started her family. With three children she decided to stop working and devote her time to raising the children but remained active joining the parent-teacher’s association of the Anshe Emet Day School in Chicago and becoming the PTA president. Once the children had attained some degree of independence, Dorothy formally re-entered the workforce as an editor at McDougall Littel in Evanston, where she learned the emerging field of desktop publishing. Dorothy went on to open her first publishing business, Newsletters Unlimited, working out of the sun porch of her Evanston home. This business flourished and eventually became a full-fledged small publishing house with its own premises, Evanston Publishing, which she ran for many years – initially in Evanston and later in Louisville Kentucky - until her retirement. Dorothy wrote and published three books about publishing, most notably The Successful Self-Publisher.

Outside of work, Dorothy maintained a rich creative life. As a teenager, she took drawing classes at the Art Institute of Chicago where her native artistic talent was recognized and encouraged. As an adult, she honed her style by attending master classes with well-known Chicago artists Ed Paschke and Lillian Desow-Fishbein. Through this training, she developed her distinctive style which deconstructs the female form into primordial biologic shapes, with rich celebratory color palates. Dorothy has exhibited widely through private galleries in Louisville Kentucky.

Dorothy was passionate about family, social justice, art and literature. She was a loving wife to Steve, devoted mother to Amy, Becky and Jenny, proud grandmother of Rachael, Sarah, Jake, Ben, and Sasha, and fierce friend of too many to mention.

A memorial service for Dorothy will be held Wednesday, December 28, 2022, 1:00 PM at Weinstein & Piser Funeral Home, with a reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (www.theAFTD.com) or the Penn FTD Center (https://www.med.upenn.edu/ftd/)

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.weinsteinfuneralhomes.com for the Kavka family.