Fay Doyle Sorenson

Fay Agnes Doyle Sorenson, aged 87, passed away peacefully on January 10, 2025, under the loving care of her son, John H. Sorenson, his family, and the devoted staff at ActivCare at Bressi Ranch, in Carlsbad, California.

Fay was born on March 13, 1937, to Fay Clemmer Doyle and Jack Christopher Doyle in Corpus Christi, Texas. Fay’s mother died the same day of complications of childbirth, and the nuns and her father quickly named her Fay Agnes, unsure whether she would survive.

Survive she did—little Fay was an intelligent, fun-loving and beautiful child who spent her first years in the care of her aunts and uncles, her father, and a rowdy crew of beloved cousins in Mission, Texas. At the age of four, Fay became a scholarship boarding student at St. Anthony Catholic School and then St. Martin Hall in San Antonio, Texas, under the tutelage of the Sisters of Divine Providence. Fay was a star student in every subject (except PE, which distaste continued her entire life), learned classical piano, and dearly loved to read, often up past lights out with a flashlight and book under the covers. During her high school years, Fay was blessed with a loving mother, Viola Doyle Buckaloo, three younger siblings, Douglas Preston, Bride Doyle Roberts and Bonnie Kay Doyle, and a family home of her own to visit in Tilden, Texas.

Fay’s love of learning propelled her through high school and into Our Lady of the Lake College in only three years, where she graduated with a degree in Biology (and represented San Antonio as a Fiesta Princess in the 67th Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California). After graduation, Fay attended Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where she received her master’s degree in biochemistry. Fay then left Texas for Palo Alto, California, where she was an NIH Doctoral Fellow at Stanford University, earning her Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing Sciences in 1969 while working as a biochemist at Stanford Research Institute in the meantime to make ends almost meet.

While a graduate student in the Bay Area, one of Fay’s suitors had an apparently intriguing roommate, Dwight Thomas Sorenson, a USMC officer and Cal MBA student, who persuaded Fay to marry him in the summer of 1965, with a wedding arranged by the groom at Naval Station Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay. Married life took the young couple all over the country, with Fay raising two small children while also working as a lecturer and assistant professor at Rutgers University, Oregon State University, San Jose State University and, when the family finally settled in California’s San Joaquin Valley, the University of the Pacific.

Taking care of her family, Fay continued to evolve professionally, becoming an audiologist, then a special education supervisor, senior program specialist, administrator for Sacramento City Unified School District and Stockton Unified School District, and special education consultant for the State of California. In every area of life, Fay worked tirelessly, shuttled her children to and from every piano, voice, guitar, swimming, ballet, and soccer lesson, game or practice, cared for the family’s many pets (and the area’s strays, domesticated or not), threw Halloween parties for the neighborhood kids on a shoe string, cleaned the house, tended the yard, cooked and entertained, mentored her colleagues at work, and was a devoted wife, a dear friend, and a loving mother.

After Fay and Dwight retired, she returned to Texas, living once again in San Antonio with the family she missed so much, then moving to Salt Lake City, Utah to spend precious years with her daughter Amy and her then-young grandchildren Regan and Kip Hodson. Finally, Fay and Dwight moved to Carlsbad, California, to spend their final years with son John, daughter-in-law Debi, grandsons Jack and Drew Sorenson, and granddaughter Madison Noyes. Fay and Dwight were simply devoted to each other, and to their family and friends.

Throughout her life, Fay set a tremendous example of accountability, love, devotion, and diligence, personal and professional. She instilled in her children her love of learning, reading, music and movies, and in delighting in one’s friends and animals, wherever found. Fay always said life is what you make of it, and the life she made was exceptional.

A graveside memorial service will be held on Friday, February 28, 2025, at Miramar National Cemetery at 3:00 p.m. Flowers may be sent to El Camino Mortuary in Encinitas, California, and donations in lieu of flowers may be made to The Humane Society of the United States, www.humanesociety.org.