Doris Emma (Peterson) Roach passed away peacefully on October 22, 2020, at age 100. Born to Emma (Olson) and Karl Peterson on March 16, 1920, in Tanana, AK, soon after her mother had arrived there via dogsled. Doris was raised in Bemidji, MN.
Doris attended local Bemidji schools, graduating from Bemidji High School in 1937. Soon after graduation, she left on a cross country trip with a girlfriend, intending to see a little bit of the country before settling down to marry her fiancé, a local farm boy. However, once she left Bemidji, she never returned to live in Minnesota again.
After staying with cousins in Seattle for a while, Doris made her way to Los Angeles, where she eventually met and fell in love with Virgil Cline, a sailor in the U.S. Navy. The two were married on November 7, 1941 in Brooklyn, NY, where he was stationed on the newly commissioned U.S.S. North Carolina. Soon after, Doris moved to San Francisco to live with her sister, Elsie, and mother, Emma, to help care for her young nephews, Michael, Lynn, and Patrick, while Virgil was serving at sea. It was there that Doris and Virgil’s only daughter, Cheryl, was born in 1944. The young family then moved to Honolulu, HI, for a couple of years where Virgil was stationed on the U.S.S. Honolulu until the end of the war. Unfortunately, Doris became a young widow and single mother when Virgil died tragically in December 1949.
Always one to persevere, mother and daughter soon moved to their adopted home state of Texas and settled in Houston, where Doris married another Navy man, veteran Murel Goodell, in 1951. They eventually expanded their family to include Richard in 1956, Nancy in 1958, and Patricia “Tish” in 1959. Doris stayed busy as a mother of four while Murel, an entrepreneur, worked on various projects such as the Goodell Monorail. His success allowed them beautiful homes, a farm in Hempstead, and the opportunity to travel extensively across the U.S. and Europe, which Doris enjoyed immensely. They were married for 24 years before parting ways.
Proving she loved a man in uniform, in 1975 Doris married another Navy man, veteran Malcolm “Mac” Roach. Mac worked in Oil & Gas and the two of them enjoyed an active social life in Houston, hosting shrimp boils at their home in Memorial, being active with the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, and traveling to exotic places. They jumped at the opportunity to live in Egypt for a year in the mid 1980’s when Mac was working there and Doris thoroughly enjoyed the adventure, as well as visiting her son, Richard, and daughter-in-law, Jodi when they lived in Singapore.
Doris also enjoyed casino gambling, which she did whenever she had the opportunity, whether visiting her daughter, Tish, in Lake Tahoe, or driving to Lake Charles with her daughter, Cheryl. Likewise, she was an avid fan of bridge, which she played weekly for years and became quite the player.
Doris is predeceased by her parents; her sister, Elsie Peterson Kelley; her husbands, Virgil Cline, Murel Goodell, and Malcolm Roach; and her three daughters, Nancy Goodell Oesch, Patricia Goodell Phillips, and Cheryl Cline Pettit. She is survived by her loving son, Richard Goodell (Jodi) of The Woodlands; five grandchildren: Robert Pettit (Sheri); Taylor Phillips (Erica); Aimee Goodell (Kyle Heath); Nicki Oesch; Samantha Oesch; and two great-grandchildren, Bridget Pettit Hundley (Hal) and Derek Pettit. She will be missed by all who loved her, and fondly remembered for her hyperbolic descriptions of food (“this gorgeous glass of milk and beautiful bread”), her penchant for glamour and all things sparkly, and as the keeper of family memories and mementos. She was immensely proud of her family and loved sharing stories about them. After all, she did have a century’s worth of stories to share!
Doris will be laid to rest next to her late husband, Malcolm Bruce Roach, in Houston with family in attendance this week. Her family wishes to extend their sincere gratitude to Doris’ kind and loving caregivers at Brookdale Memorial City.
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