Doris S. Jimison

Doris S. Jimison, known to all as ‘Doree’, a resident of Englewood, Florida, since 1981 (Knight Island through 2004, then Park Forest) died peacefully in a Venice, Florida, hospice on June 30th at the age of 105. Born on October 20, 1919, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, she was the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Herbert A. Sawyer. Educated at the College of Wooster, Ohio, and then Columbia University in New York, she graduated in 1942 with both a Bachelor of Arts and a Nursing Degree.

During nurse’s training Doree fell in love with a close friend’s brother and on the 4th of July 1942, married William Milo Jimison, an electrical engineering graduate of Cornell University who had been hired as an engineer at Bell Laboratories in New York. Bill was on his way to England, however, as a First Lieutenant in the US Army to train in the use of radar, followed by service as a Liaison Officer between British and American forces, while she served as a nurse in the defense industry at General Motors. On Bill’s return from Europe, he was transferred to provide radar-training in Venice, Florida, where the first of their seven children was born in December 1944.

She raised her growing family in Plainfield, New Jersey, with Bill commuting to Bell Labs in New York, and upon his transfer to Columbus, Ohio, on a 132-acre farm in Granville. They fed the family with home-grown beef and garden vegetables, but she also took night shifts as a nurse and later sold real estate. When Bill retired after 35 years at Bell Laboratories, they moved to Englewood, where Doree became active in numerous local social, charitable, and church groups.

She is survived by her sister Barbara, her sons John (Mitzi) and Rik (Liz) and her daughters Nancy (Geoff) and Lucy (Gonzalo), nineteen grandchildren, sixteen great-grandchildren, and two great-great grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, her parents, her brothers John and Herbert Jr., and her sons Edward, Robert, and Daniel.

She was a double life-master in bridge, a talented painter, a poet, a voracious reader, a veteran international traveler, a member of the League of Women Voters, a whiz at Sudoku and NYT crossword puzzles, and an active on-line presence on Facebook and word games until shortly before her death. To those privileged to know her, she was a wise, witty, calm, generous and loving presence throughout a long and productive life. Christmas will never be the same without a hand-drawn and often hilarious Christmas card mailed to her long list of friends and family. And all the members of her loving family will never be the same without her devoted, principled, steadfast and inspirational example. The God who blessed us with her will surely bless her as she comes home to Him.