Dorothy Ann Fortney

WILLIAMSBURG, VA — Beloved Sister and Aunt taught preschool for 35 years in the San Diego school system. Dorothy embraced life with wit, quiet grit and lightness of being. She was the descendant of a long line of Norwegian immigrants and was the embodiment of her namesake “Guds gave” – gift of God. Dorothy was the eldest daughter of banker/farmer Tillman Palmer Fortney and school teacher Liva Hagelie, and sister to the late James Clayton Fortney and Phyllis Jane Weed. She was greatly appreciated and adored by her nieces and nephews. She grew up on the Fortney farm on the west side of Bowdon, ND. Early on she received piano lessons and would continue to play throughout her life delighting her students, friends and family. She also picked up a little folk guitar to further captivate her pupils. After graduating in 1943 from Bowdon High School, Dorothy attended Concordia College, in Moorhead, MN. It was there that she found her passion in life after visiting an orphanage in Fargo, ND. She transferred to the pioneering “Miss Stella Woods Center” in St. Paul, MN—a leader in promoting preschool education and in 1946 Dorothy received her Kindergarten/Primary Grades Teachers Certificate. The Center was later incorporated into Macalester College and while Dorothy taught for 7 years in Sauk Rapids and Red Wing, MN, she earned her BS in El.Ed. from Macalester in 1953. After graduation Dorothy and a former classmate drove out to San Diego answering California’s recruitment efforts for good school teachers. She enjoyed driving and would often make the trip from San Diego to Bowdon to visit her family during summer recess. Dorothy loved her close friends from teaching days, Pacific Beach, enjoying chardonnay, and playing lively piano tunes. True to her nature Dorothy lived independently in San Diego until she was 89. Her remaining years were spent like her early teaching years in CA with her sister Phyllis and her husband John, and the rest of the Weed family in Williamsburg, VA, where she passed away at age 91. A graveside memorial service will be held in late summer at Bowdon’s Wayside Cemetery, down from her ancestral farm. The last song she played on the piano for her niece was: “If All the Raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops, Oh, what a rain it would be!” We will think of her often and somewhere, beyond the grave she remains forever uplifting and God’s gift to us all.

[Printed in The Herald Press-Harvey & Foster County Independent-Carrington, North Dakota. Online Obituary at Carrington News.com, North Dakota]