Doris M. Matthews

January 4, 1927 – June 16, 2020

Although we miss her terribly, we will try to still our grief at our sudden loss and remember—and celebrate—what a truly long and blessed life Doris led while she was on this earth.

Doris was born in Norfolk, VA after her parents moved there for employment reasons. But they returned to Johnston County, NC after a few years during the height of the Great Depression, where she grew up in a series of small farmhouses as Daddy Joe leased and farmed a series of farms. As the youngest child (and only girl), she was probably spoiled “just a little bit,” but she still learned the value of hard work and determination. After all, it takes a special kind of determination (she was blessed with the family “stubborn gene”) for a six-year-old to use an axe to crack a walnut. But bloody forehead aside, she lived to tell the tale with no major injury.

Times were often hard: As farmers her family was lucky in that they always had food to eat, but other items could be hard to come by—Doris had the good fortune to have two pairs of shoes, one for daily work and play and another for fancy Sundays, a pair of shiny black patent Mary Janes she treasured … until the time she took them off when the family stopped on their Sunday drive, put her priceless shoes in safekeeping on the roof of the car while she played and then forgot they were there until after the family had driven off, by which point one shoe had been lost forever (not to be replaced).

Through it all, her bright eyes, sweet but mischievous smile, shining spunk and gentle “can do” spirit brought her playmates for makeshift games and stood her in good stead in life’s sometimes harsh training: When she requested fried chicken for dinner and was told by her mother that they could have it IF she caught the chicken (probably fully expecting that Doris wouldn’t be able to do this), she proceeded to chase and stun a chicken in the yard with a stick (and yes, they did have fried chicken!).

College was another proving ground. Coming from the tiny, rural schoolhouse¬ in Wilson’s Mills, which had only eleven grades, she felt under-prepared and initially studied all night under a blanket-draped desk, afraid of falling behind. After graduating in 1948 with a degree in home economics from Meredith College, she worked in Washington, NC (aka “Little Washington” to the locals) for the NC Extension Service as a county home demonstration agent, traveling throughout the county helping farm families improve their homemaking. For those days, this was a sort of forerunner feminist advocacy job, demanding an independent mind of practical bent, a knack for business and acute communication skills as well as home engineering knowledge. She also worked for a bit in Chattanooga after getting married in 1950, but soon devoted herself to raising three children and keeping her own home running smoothly.

Doris was a skilled seamstress who loved to sew and create items which had both form and function. She made a great deal of her own clothes and also the children’s clothes. She created everything from girls’ school uniforms to dance costumes to evening wear to curtains, and she even sewed an entire set of costumes for a high school production of The Sound of Music at GPS. You know the costumes – the children’s play clothes that Maria “repurposed” from the curtains? They were loud and awful, but that was exactly the point!

She obviously excelled in such practical arts, but she also had an acute sense of the human lay of the land that was our nuclear family, building bridges and mending fences whenever necessary. She was an intuitive mediator who could ease and smooth whatever family tensions arose with a down-to-earth yet lighthearted and even-handed approach. Above all, she was a pragmatic, positive thinker as well as a steadfast listener who was always ready to lend an ear if you wanted to confide your troubles. While our family had few troubles compared to most, this was a seminal time for the nuclear family as well as for the nation, and she was simultaneously a standard-bearer (sometimes strict and somewhat stern when needed) and an independent thinker who carried us through times of change in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond.

Doris enjoyed traveling with her husband, Philip, our father, both before and after he retired from DuPont in the early 1980s. She was a nervous flyer, but she managed to overcome that fear and enjoy the land and sea portions of their travels. But their most dramatic trip had to be their 1996 vacation to Russia, during which they suddenly had to take a long, unexpected detour to Finland for extensive back surgery requiring steel stabilization pins after she fractured a vertebra in a fall on the stairs on the way to her seat in the suddenly-dimmed Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. She returned to the States temporarily in a wheelchair, her movement hampered, and shortly after that, Daddy suddenly died in March 1997. This was indeed an incredibly tough time for her to bear and weather, but the grit and steely determination evident from her early childhood carried her through. One of her regrets was that he never knew his granddaughter, our all-grown-up Kelly, who was born later that year.

Doris remained independent into her 90s by eating well and paying particular attention to her health, plus enjoying the company of her close friends. But, as with many older women, she never fully recovered after a fall in 2018 that resulted in a fractured hip. Her perseverance and hard work in physical rehab helped her recover after the fall, but this was unfortunately the first of several health issues that slowed her down her last two years.

Throughout her life, she was a caring and loving daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, sister-in-law, aunt and friend to all of us. We cannot thank her enough for everything she did for all of us, and we hope she is resting at peace now. Goodbye Doris – we love you and will forever keep you in our hearts.