Dorothy Kearney

June 26, 1922 - January 22, 2013

Dorothy Josie-Kearney was born on a warm summer’s day on the twenty-sixth of June 1922 in St. Petersburg, Virginia.

Dorothy was the second child born to her Mother, Hattie Bolling, a very industrious domestic worker and her Father, Jesse Josie, who worked as a radio announcer for semi-professional baseball. Her older sister, Rosalie, and her younger brother, Albert, were all born a mere 18 months apart from one another. Dorothy was eight years old when the family moved here to New York City where she remained for her entire life.

When she was 18 years old, she met and married the man she always referred to as, “The love of my life” –Joseph Robinson Kearney. A young soldier, recently drafted during World War II, Joseph Kearney was strolling down the street in Harlem where Dorothy lived at the time. He happened to be walking with a mutual friend of both of theirs and, after being introduced to Dorothy, they began dating that very night when he took her to an ice cream parlor. Two years later, they were married in December 1942.

Dorothy became a Licensed Practical Nurse in 1953 after graduating from the top-rated Central School For Practical Nurses. Possessed of both a sharp mind as well as indefatigable energy, she worked on the medical-surgical units at the former Flower Fifth Avenue and Polyclinic Hospitals as well as becoming a private duty nurse for several agencies.

The couple had three children, Deirdra, an Interfaith Minister and a registered nurse; Joseph, a former court officer for the Bronx County courthouse and combat veteran of the Vietnam war; and Franklin, an accomplished still-photographer and published author of fiction. Her granddaughter, April Williams, a semi-pro softball player and former basketball coach, currently works as a schoolteacher in a Brooklyn charter school.

Dorothy Josie-Kearney passed away on the morning of January 22, 2013, the way she had often expressed her desire to leave, “peacefully in my sleep.” She is survived by her sister, Rosalie Knight, her brother-in-law, James Puryear, her daughter, Deirdra Kearney, her sons, Joseph Kearney and Franklin Kearney, two daughters-in-law, Luisa Porrata and Marian Thibou-Kearney, and her granddaughter, April Williams, as well as a host of lovifng family and friends.

The entire family of Dorothy Kearney is able to take comfort in the knowledge that she is finally re-united with her beloved husband, Joseph Kearney, who has been patiently awaiting her arrival since his death on Thanksgiving Day, 1966.