Dorothy Heisler Lancaster

Dorothy (Dot) Heisler Lancaster died on November 5th, 2017 in Panama City, Florida. She was the third daughter of the late Herman E. and Betty Lewis Heisler, born October 24th, 1923 in Elmore County, Alabama. She was the last survivor among her parents and eight siblings. She was raised on the small family farm and attended public school in Elmore Co. She graduated from Wetumpka High School in 1942 and enrolled in the St. Margaret’s Hospital School of Nursing in Montgomery. Throughout the Second World War she was a nursing student and often remarked that with so many nurses serving in the armed forces that the nursing students ran the hospital. Dot graduated from nursing school on VJ Day, August 15th, 1945. She then began a career in nursing that spanned 57 years, the remainder of the 20th century. In Dot’s first job she worked for a doctor in private practice where she met her future husband who sought treatment for malaria contracted during his service in the Pacific. Dot worked for several hospitals in Montgomery, mostly at the Montgomery Veteran’s Administration Hospital and Baptist Hospital. She was a skilled surgical nurse, but worked in every setting from medical floors and maternity wards, to emergency room and out-patient, where she touched countless lives and gave attentive, professional care to generations of Montgomery residents. Dot finally retired from nursing in 2002 at age 78. After retirement she moved first to live with her daughter Susan in Loxahatchee, Florida, and later to Panama City where her daughter Hilda resides. A woman of quiet but sincere faith, Dot was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Lynn Haven, Florida.

Dot was married to the late Carl Herbert Lancaster, Jr. on December 31st, 1946. The couple spent the 49 years of their married life in Montgomery. She is survived by her four children, Carl H. Lancaster, III of Montgomery, Alabama, Hilda Burnett (Lyle) of Panama City, Florida, Susan Clubb of Loxahatchee, Florida and Winston Lancaster (Ginger) of Birmingham, Alabama, five grandchildren, Beth Burnett, Stephanie Burnett, Jeremy Clubb, Austin Clubb and Amber Taft, and four great grandchildren, Paxton and Harper Clubb, and Micah and Charlotte Taft. She left numerous cousins, nieces and nephews and two special friends, Tiffany Lipska of Montgomery, Alabama and JoAnn Hautamaki of Loxahatchee, Florida.

Dot was a talented seamstress; she had a special touch with children’s clothes and every baby in the family wore exquisite hand-smocked dresses. She was a lover of nature. A farm girl born caring for animals, she was an avid gardener who loved flowers and had a special talent for African violets. She raised her children to nurture animals and plants and marvel in the natural world. She was the one called by friends and family when a child was sick, always giving freely of her wisdom and experience. She would have considered that her greatest calling in life was to serve others as daughter, wife, mother, aunt and friend. She nourished them with food, sewed their clothes, pierced their ears, and sent them to school. She nursed them when they were sick and held them when they cried, she sent care packages to soldiers overseas and students in college. Through her example she inspired her children with a work ethic learned as a child of the depression and taught them to care for the people they love. Dot was a woman of wit, wisdom and love.

A celebration of Dot’s life will be held at the Leak Memory Chapel on November 18th 2017; visitation at 1:00, service at 2:00 led by the Rev. Myron Price. Donations may be made in her name to Mercy Corps for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico (https://www.mercycorps.org/donate/urgent-send-relief-devastated-puerto-rico) or to the Covenant Care Hospice of Panama City, Florida (https://choosecovenant.org/donate/).