Dorothy Choate

On November 26, 2024, Dorothy Carroll Choate, our beloved wife, mother, grandmother and great grandmother was surrounded by her family and holding the hand of her best friend and husband of 71 years, Nat, when she passed quietly away. Dot, Mom, Nani was 91 and was ready for the eternal rest that she well deserved.

Although gone from our sides, she will always be with us as we feel her embrace in all of life’s special moments. She will be remembered for her incredible love of family, strong will, news commentary and sharp wit. One of her greatest moments was insisting that the ambulance stop at the polling center to enable her to vote in the 2024 Presidential election as the crowd applauded her dedication!

Dorothy (Dot) was born in Searsport, Maine on August 7, 1933. She spent her childhood years in Searsport and graduated from Searsport High School in1950. Dot met the “new boy in town” during a high school athletic event at the age of 14 and spent the next 77 years with the love of her life. While Nat attended Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine, Dot attended Husson College in Bangor, Maine to pursue a business career. They married the day after graduation in 1953 and on June 7, 2024, they celebrated 71 years of better or worse. Dot followed Nat and his US Navy assignments, eventually settling in Springfield, Virginia. Maine remained her “forever home” and the family cottage on Swan Lake became a gathering spot for friends and family every summer.

Dot cherished her family. She will be greatly missed by her husband Nat, her 3 children Donna Choate Gibson (Ed), Teresa Choate Loriaux (Lynn), Nathaniel Scott Choate (Cindi), her special Venezuelan exchange daughter Michelle Marquez Vernet, her 9 grandchildren, Natalie Miller (Daniel), Ted Gibson (Lauren), Dylan Loriaux (Megan), Daniel Loriaux (Sandra), Grant Loriaux (Rachael), Nathaniel Choate, Jr., Tyler Choate, Ryan Choate, Andrew Choate, and her 7 great-grandchildren – Dylan Miller, Teagan Miller, Shepard Gibson, Thomas Gibson, James Gibson, Penelope (Penny) Loriaux and Wells Gibson. Her face lit up when babies were near!

Dorothy was predeceased by her parents Raymond and Beulah Carroll, as well as her siblings Ross Carroll (Irene) and Nancy Hamilton (Gene).

Dot loved having a houseful of neighborhood kids and became a “second mom” to many. She will be remembered for her professional cake decorating, her artistic talents, craft shows displaying her famous Magic Model dolls, arranging silk flowers and wedding bouquets, fashioning wedding attire for brides and their bridal parties, working with Nat to create and manage the Annandale-Springfield Girls’ Softball League, and countless hours volunteering in her community and at her children’s schools. Most recently, she enjoyed word games and doing jigsaw puzzles with Nat.

Like most New Englanders, Dot was outwardly quiet and reserved – not quick to befriend a stranger, but once you earned her trust, you had a lifelong friend. Special friends included Mike Hamilton, the Turners, and the Cranshaws (once a Henway, always a Henway – if you know, you know). She never lost her New England accent, and always “pahked the cah.” Her love/hate relationship with the Boston Red Sox was epic. She watched or listened to almost every game, and viewed replays the next day. She could often be heard declaring “I don’t care if it is a replay – he made the same stupid play yesterday!”

Dot’s family would like to thank her special caregivers and the Aarondale Assisted Living community for the kindness, love and support that made this her perfect last home.

Dot requested no special visitation or service; she simply wanted to return to Maine, her garden and her beloved Swan Lake. We will gather to celebrate her life during the summer of 2025 at the cottage where she spent so much time watching her kids, grandkids and great-grandkids on the beach, eating Mike Hamilton’s delicious cherry tomatoes, and sitting among the birch trees listening to the loons or counting the hummingbirds. Dot was a voracious reader and while she loved flowers, it would make her smile if you chose to donate to the Searsport Memorial Library: 12 Union Street, Searsport, Maine 04974(with note “Dorothy Choate Memorial”).