Dorothy Waters Buchholz

Dorothy lived in Houston for most of the last 50 years. But in her heart, she belonged to California. She loved the Pacific Ocean, the beaches near La Jolla Cove, the serenity of watching sailboats glide across the water. Dorothy was born in Long Beach, California, on March 7, 1930, and grew up in the communities of Compton and Willowbrook. In her childhood, South Central Los Angeles meant horses and haystacks and alfalfa fields – and an occasional airplane ride, seated behind her father in an open cockpit, over unspoiled land.

Dorothy had a great eye. She had talent with a camera, took an artist’s pride in composing her snapshots. She loved movies, too, and watched them with a literate eye. Throughout her life, she had the uncanny ability to forecast the outcome of any movie long before its formal conclusion – and would consistently demonstrate this talent, discreetly, while a film was in progress. Dorothy was never surprised by “the twist at the end.”

She paid attention. Dorothy was exacting, skeptical, driven to perfection. In her own kitchen, at her own table, at a restaurant, Dorothy insisted “hot things should be hot, and cold things should be cold.” When her neurologist invited her to utter a sentence, any ordinary sentence, during a test to measure her memory in 2009, Dorothy recited Shakespeare. During her student years at Compton College, Dorothy took pride in writing humorous, affectionate letters to old high school friends living away from home – but as a young adult she stopped writing letters altogether because she didn’t feel the writing was good enough.

Dorothy had a soft spot for cats: Her beloved Witty, T Bear, George Button-Biter, and a couple dozen more. She loved morning coffee in the afternoon. She treasured the Houston Chronicle. For decades, Dorothy read the obituary section with tenderness and respect – circling favorite passages in black pen, re-reading them, and then saving the life stories of these strangers on the page, feeling a quiet, universal connection.

She tended toward solitude, knew the shadows of depression. Through the decades, she always looked much younger than her years. Dorothy’s favorite Depression-era Christmas present was a Sonja Henie doll. She loved Henry Fonda in “The Grapes of Wrath” and Ernest Borgnine in “Marty.” She cooked a tasty pot roast, baked a terrific Boston Cream Pie. She liked azaleas, dark chocolate, “Ziggy” comics, Carol Burnett, Kliban cats, and the music of Frank Sinatra. She was a confident singer, with a perfect ear for harmony, but rarely demonstrated the gift outside her home. The first record she owned was “Sabre Dance.”

Dorothy would have preferred a world without TV football, gun racks in pick-up trucks, and “The Three Stooges.” She rarely referenced scripture, unless it was to remind her children to turn the other cheek. Instead, Dorothy preferred to quote from the Great American songbook: “Accentuate the Positive,” from Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, or “Que Sera, Sera,” as sung by Doris Day.

Dorothy liked cardinals, kept the hours of the night owl. She was a good listener. She believed a “night out” for dinner was to be taken literally – a leisurely meal, with hours of reminiscence and thoughtful conversation. Even in her 80s, Dorothy was frequently the last customer out the restaurant door at Taste of Texas – vacuums humming, house lights blazing, as the doors were locked behind her ‘round midnight.

Dorothy’s mother – the late Dorothy Marshall Waters – was a single divorced mom who raised her three girls, with extraordinary grace, on a grocery checker’s salary in the 1940s. Dorothy’s husband – Schlumberger engineer Carl W. Buchholz – met her at a party during his college days at USC in the early 1950s and fell in love at first sight. Although Carl died in 1990, he fulfilled his oft-stated promise to provide the very best for Dorothy for the rest of her days.

Dorothy died suddenly in Houston on September 3, 2016, from complications attributable to Alzheimer’s and dementia. She was preceded in death by her first-born child, the beautiful Cathleen Susan Buchholz, in 1953. She is survived by sisters Annette Ramaley of Raleigh, N.C. and Margie Chapman of Los Angeles. She is also survived by son Brad Buchholz of Austin, daughter Cathy Hendricks (and husband Jeff Hendricks) of Virginia, grandson Devin Hendricks, and granddaughter Amanda Hendricks of Miami.

The family is grateful to Houston neighbors Pat Newberry, Dorothy Hughes, and Wilda Bayless, who reached out to Dorothy after Carl’s death. Love to Deloris Thornton, whose energy, optimism, and companionship since 2009 allowed Dorothy (aka “ladybug”) some of the most peaceful and self-assured years of her life. Thank you, forever, to Gladys, Regina, Julie, and Tye.

Love to Margaret Slovak, who for years played beautiful music for Dorothy on her guitar and reached out to her with the same gentleness and grace that inhabited Margaret’s songs. Thank you B.G. and Val Williams. Thank you Dr. Karina Ramirez and Dr. Harold Kurlander and Dr. Christopher Merkl. Thank you Melody Costello. Thank you Linda Goehrs. Thank you Kris Diaz. Thank you Gene Bertoncini. Special thanks to Jeff Yeomans, whose La Jolla ocean paintings brought such great joy and solace to Dorothy during the last years of her life.

The family will say goodbye to Dorothy at a private service in California, near the ocean, the beaches, the sailboats.