Doris Marie Couch

Doris was born and raised in the Milwaukee area. Living above her grandparents’ bakery as a small child, her grandfather nicknamed her Cookie, after her love of the treat he would frequently give her. The name stuck, used by both friends and family, until she started a professional career in her thirties.

With her father being absent since before her birth and her mother only able to obtain low paying jobs, in her later childhood she lived on welfare, of which she often felt ashamed. It resulted, however, in making her fiercely independent and unafraid, never wanting to take a handout or ask for help later in life, even when things got tough. It also made her a decades long donator to Habitat for Humanity, her favorite charity.

As a divorced single mom, living below the poverty level, she made sure her children had what they needed and more, rocking a tight budget, so they never felt “poor”. They always had birthday parties, frequently with fun 3D-shaped and extravagantly decorated cakes she made herself. She also made sure they had new school clothes, summer trips to the local amusement park or Lake Michigan beach, and road trips to places they wanted to go. She spontaneously drove many hours into northern Wisconsin one school night, in hopes of finding the predicted Northern Lights her twelve-year-old daughter so badly wanted to see. Doris worked a job where she had summers off when her children were young, so she could frequently take them camping. This was instrumental in giving them a lifelong love of the outdoors and wildlife. She took them on a three-week tent camping road trip to Colorado, with many adventures planned and unplanned along the way. She followed that up by arranging for her 13-year-old son to stay for several weeks with a forest ranger family friend as a volunteer in a Colorado Rocky Mountain Forest ranger station.

Doris was also actively involved in the Women’s Equal Rights movement, volunteering in various organizations and attending marches, etc. during the 70s and 80s. She was involved in the formation and early growth of what became the nonprofit women’s empowerment group Woman Within Intl. This helped her daughters know they could do or be anything they set their minds to. She hoped it helped her son appreciate his girlfriends, wife, and daughters as equal individuals. Doris spent the last decade of her working life as a Senior Branch Office Administrator at Edward Jones. Upon retiring, she spent many years helping care for her grandsons after school and running them to various sporting practices and games. She also spent a lot of time reading, crocheting, and enjoying other peoples’ dogs.

Doris joins her mother Gladys, her sisters, Georgia and Gwen, and her children, Jill and Roger, in the next life. She is survived by her daughter Jodi, son-in-law Kevin, daughter-in-law Sandra, and grandchildren, Liesel, Dana, Elijah, Logan, Kaleb, and Dietrich. She will be missed.