Dorothy Jean Dewald

She was preceded in death by her father Oval Johnson, her mother Tula Johnson, her son Gary Wayne Atkinson, her brother Jerome Johnson, her sister June G. Johnson, her sister Toy Johnson, and husbands Wayne Atkinson and Henry DeWald Jr.,

She is survived by her loving husband Jose Mendoza, his siblings Aalbaro, Ana, Coco, and nieces Jasmin, Jacobet and Ysenia.

She is survived by her son Richard DeWald RN, a hospice nurse in New York City.

She is survived by her granddaughter Renee Atkinson of New Orleans, LA, great grandchildren Justin, Brandy and Kris Williams, and great great grand-children Kenleigh, Kristian and Kyla Williams.

She is survived by her grandson Aaron Atkinson, of Lakeland, FL, his wife Kathy, great grandchildren Levi Atkinson, Nikki Atkinson, Tommy Ussery, Jaimee Ussery, Korey Ussery, and Emilee Wilds, and great great grandchildren Jake Hall, Zack Hall, Malachi Ussery, Lorelei Ussery, Mya Johnson, Kylie Johnson and Mila Martinez.

She is survived by her granddaughter Veronica King, of Orange Park, FL, great grandchildren Austin, Baylee and Shannon King, as well as great great grandchild Wyatt King.

She will also be remembered fondly by lifelong friends Tom Spencer, Walter and Heather Keith, and Karen Wilmoth, all in the Dallas, Texas area.

She was the second-ever female Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) licensed in the state of Texas. Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriters, in the 1950's, before insurance company computers crunched Big Data, were the people those companies trusted their money to, they were the people who decided whether or not a risk could be insured, and if so, what was a fair and profitable premium. It was the professional equivalent of a lawyer, or a CPA, and Jean stood against the tide of discrimination and harassment to take her seat at the table back when just being female was enough to be declared unfit for such responsibility.

Assessing insurance risk wasn't enough of an intellectual challenge for her by the mid 1960's and she returned to school to earn an undergraduate degree in chemistry from UT Arlington, going on immediately to graduate school at TCU to study organic chemistry, specifically psychoactive alkaloids in succulent plants on the American continent.

Life threw it's challenges to her family, and she was unable to pursue her scientific career owing to her obligations as a newly-single custodial parent in the 1970's, so after a brief career as a public school science teacher she went back to working in the insurance industry, and did so until her situation permitted another change in career. In the early 1990's, the Dallas School of Law, a then-unaccredited new law school opened (Now Texas A&M University's School of Law).

She took a reduction in professional salary and responsibility to take a job as a legal secretary in order to make her education possible This choice offered the flexibility in schedule she needed to study and work full-time, and in 1995 she was awarded a Juris Doctor and admitted (on her first try) to the bar for the State of Texas at 66 years old.

Weary of working for other people, she opened the legal practice that remained open until her passing out of the front half of the home in which she was raised in Pleasant Grove in Dallas.

As an attorney, she refused to turn anyone away because of ability to pay. She performed tens of dozens of divorces for poor women escaping an abusive situation for $20 over court costs. These aren't easy rubber-stamp divorces, Many were knock-down drag-out affairs with multiple filings, hearings and depositions. She could usually count on her opponents to misjudge her ability to persevere for justice for her economically-disadvantaged clients. She prevailed in cases again and again because the facts were on her side and she persisted until those facts were proven.

Jean believed in the triumph of justice over raw power. Whenever the powerful were abusively disregarding the law in favor of financial/legal/physical intimidation, she stood firm. Countless families have been able to escape violence, stay in the United States, hold on to their homes and raise their children in peace because she stood by their side when no one else would.

She had a painting in her law office of a rabbit running furiously towards cover while being pursued by a descending hawk. She's been the metaphorical legal cover that rabbit is headed towards to escape the clutches of a powerful legal predator. That's what kept her going, she enjoyed what she confessed was a kind of satisfaction and pleasure from using the legal system to defeat the powerful and well-off trying to use the law for intimidation.

She was Mr. Smith in Washington, George Bailey in Bedford Falls, she was every righteous character that Capra ever dreamed of.

She was served by hospice for the last part of her life and enjoyed her final months by painting portraits to give away to friends and family. She passed in the company of her loving husband Jose Mendoza at about 5:30 AM central daylight time on Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at Baylor Hospital in downtown Dallas from heart failure. She was 88.