Dorothy Dobbins

Dorothy Myrtle “Dot” Dobbins, 95, passed away on April 21, 2015 in Raleigh, NC. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1920, she was the daughter and only child of Ivan and Emilie Crouch. In addition to her parents she was preceded in death by her husband James “Dobby” Dobbins. She is survived by their two sons, Jerry and wife Edith of Sapphire, NC and Richard (Rick) and his wife Mary Jane (MJ) of Lake Toxaway, NC as well as grandchildren Shari and David and great grandchildren Jordan, Jessica, Desiree and Mateo.

A child of the Great Depression she learned lessons in hard work and saving that carried on throughout her life. She met Dobby (who had come to Indianapolis from Sandy Mush, NC) while both were working at an A&P grocery store and married him in 1940, only to see him ship off to Europe in WWII. During those years she supported the war effort working at Linkbelt in Indianapolis, and in a time when “women didn’t fly” she completed a solo flight in pursuit of a pilot’s license. Following the war she and Dobby started their family in Indiana, eventually moving to Florida in 1960, where they became long-time members of Lakeside UMC. She reveled in being an adult Sunday school teacher for Lakeside’s BYKOTA class. After Jerry and Rick both left home, she embarked upon a new course as a librarian for the Palm Beach County School System, from which she eventually retired. After the death of Dobby, when Rick took a job in Raleigh, NC she moved to the Springmoor CCRC in Raleigh, where she lived for the next seventeen years.

An intelligent, opinionated, witty, religiously faithful and sometimes poetic woman she could be at times charming and at others irascible, and as her nurses at Springmoor found out, it was hard to tell what she would be on any given day. In her later years she delighted in working crossword puzzles and watching 24 hour news channels.

Visitation will be on Monday, April 27 from 6-8PM at Dorsey-E. Earl Smith Funeral Home in Lake Worth, A graveside service will be held on April 28 at 10 AM at Lake Worth Memory Gardens, with Parson David Branson of Lakeside UMC officiating.