Nana's Euology (as written by my father) − 4 September, 2007
Tribute: Dorothy “Dorrie” May (Mae) Nees Dennis
First of all, on behalf of the family (Nancy and her partner, Tieg; Pam and me; Dorrie’s grandsons, Kelly and Noel; and Pam and Nancy’s sister, Siri, and her husband Roger), let me thank you for coming to what we hope will be not an occasion to mourn but an opportunity to celebrate a life lived long, 83 years to be exact. To be sure, that life had its bad moments as well as its good and far too many of the ordinary. Still, we are here to remind you, and ourselves, of the mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend, and neighbor who touched lives near and far.
Some of you will remember that Dorrie came to this area, in particular Roswell, in 1945, almost fresh from college as the dewy-eyed bride of Glenn Dennis. There they had three daughters, one whom, Patricia, died soon after birth. In 1956, Dorrie and Glenn divorced, and the daughters want us to remember the sacrifices Dorrie made, as single mother in an age when so little attention was paid to those without spouses, so that they might have as nearly a normal childhood as possible. She went to school to advance her secretarial skills. She worked in the real estate, gas and oil industries. She tried to provide according to her means, which were, as the girls have often recalled for me, not dollars but devotion, not material goods but maternal attentiveness.
I met Dorrie in spring on 1967, when the woman I was dating, Pam, invited me to Roswell for the ritual meeting of the parents, principally her mother. Some of you remember that Dorrie was then married to a taciturn task-master, a fellow who didn’t have a laugh bone in his body. I would later tell Pam I thought the hours had passed uneventfully, if, understandably, a touch awkwardly. Then came the morning after, specifically breakfast. Which, under a tyrant’s watchful and frugal eye consisted of, no kidding, one piece of toast (lightly buttered), one egg (scrambled but lightly) and one lonely strip of bacon. Throughout, of course, we made conversation, or I did if mostly between my ears: Can we go to Denny’s after breakfast, I wondered. Is this what I have to look forward to on my own breakfast table? At the same time, I found Dorrie then as I would for years and years thereafter: gracious, good-humored, smart about the issues that matter, splendidly dressed, poised as a model, and devoted to her girls.
None of that changed over the years. Oh, yes, the tyrant would be divorced, as would an unctuous fellow years later in Dallas. Pam and I married in 1969, our own children would come along directly, and year by year Dorrie was a steadfast presence in our lives, even at long distance. She remembered every event, big or small, that gave our lives shape and hue: birthdays, anniversaries, good fortune, a new job, a vacation, a publication, an election. She was, as I would discover, engaged with the world beyond Roswell, ready with an informed observation about the warp and woof of the world that might have an effect on her daughters and her grandchildren. She was ready with a laugh, often at her own expense; she was generous with her treasure and her love; she expected much of those she shared the planet with; and, not surprisingly, she prized loyalty, wisdom and wit.
Now, let me share with your some “facts” you may not have known about Dorrie. Her family, most notably her father, called her Dot, and one story that typifies their relationship occurred the first day of school, to which they walked together. At some point, probably just after the bell has rung, the Rev. Nees is about to leave for home, and Dorrie, clearly perplexed, scoots over in her desk chair and says, without hesitation, “Here, Dad, there’s room for both of us.”
Later, at the Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa, Idaho, Dot becomes Dottie and, more frequently, Dorothy. Evidently, when she left college for work in Washington as yet another “Rosie the Riveter” toward the end of World War II, she became “Dorrie,” a new name for a new being off on a new adventure.
Pam likes to tell an anecdote that occurs during her years as a cheerleader at Roswell North Junior High. Dorrie had the habit, precious in its way, of dressing up in the school colors, blue and gold, for all the athletic events featuring what were then called the “Puppies.” At one football game, an important one, Dorrie arrived as she always did, manicured and coifed and immaculately dressed, including impossibly high heels. The game is close, thrillingly close, but the Puppies prevail and in the ensuing celebration Dorrie finds herself descending the stands toward the entrance the players use to exit the field. She, of course, stumbles. Pam, yes, is mortified, which is an almost permanent state of being for a teenager. Her mother, it will develop, is nonplussed. She plunges through the throng of football players, who struggle to help her upstream. Later, she will remind Pam that such was a wonderful way to meet guys.
At another turn in their youth, Pam and Nancy found out that their mother once went out on a triple-date (or some version of such) with Dick “Night Train” Lane, Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle. For a time, there was a cocktail napkin as proof. That said, Dorrie would tell you that she was much more concerned with the Roswell Rockets, the local minor league team.
Many of you know that Dorrie had an impressive singing voice. In fact, in one of the yearbooks we have displayed on the table near the stove, you will find a dedication from one her college music teachers who terms Dorrie the “girl with the golden voice.” A fellow student promises to meet her at “The Met.” Some years ago, Nancy, Pam, Dorrie and I went to an Isotopes game in Albuquerque. For the “National Anthem,” we rose. In a moment, all those in Section B, Rows 2 through 15 were turned in our direction. Dorrie was in full throat. Enviably clear and resonant, hers was a voice that turned heads, for she sang with passion and skill; she could hit all the notes, even those that flummox the professionals trot out for our entertainment.
When Dorrie lived with us in Columbus, a few years after we moved there from Cleveland, Dorrie achieved notoriety as a bartender. As Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Ohio State University, I had occasion to throw parties for my faculty and our students. Dorrie was the mistress of the margarita, which she liked salty and tart. Fortunately, tequila was not an indispensable ingredient. It became, rather, an option. Out of tequila, well, use rum. Or whiskey. Or crème de menthe. Needless to say, she was exceedingly popular with all who would end up sleeping at our house in the aftermath.
She also became a candy-marker during this time. “Dorrie’s Desert Desserts” was her product: sand tarts (melted in your mouth, no kidding), toffee (seemed to require every pot, pan and tray in the house), and “Fours,” another top-secret recipe she learned at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Roswell. To help, our friend Susan Weir Ancker, a potter, made plates that Dorrie filled with her delights to mail all over America, one example of which you can see on the table.
Wigs. Dorrie wore them. (As did, to my horror, Pam, even on our wedding day.) This practice ended with the first grandchild, Noel, who, clearly happy to have something new to play with, one day snatched her “fall” from her head. Thereafter, Dorrie went “natural,” though she continued to color her hair for many years, still another effort, wholly admirable, to look her best for those in and outside the family. But Dorrie was not vain—well, no more than any of us. She believed in good manners, good grooming, and good humor. If she had once been picky, she became, over time, less fussy and more tolerant. Virtually until the day she passed, she “did” her nails. She, like her daughters, loved shoes (in fact, we suspect that a complete DNA analysis will discover, in all her blood relatives, a pump-shaped gene alarmingly close to the gene for the credit card).
Let me close with something more obviously sentimental. A few days before she died, while Nancy and Pam were at her bedside in the nursing home, a roadrunner came to her window in Albuquerque, a remarkable happenstance in an urban environment. The day after she died, here in Lincoln, a spectacular rainbow appeared over the mountains east of our deck. Yesterday, while Pam and our older son Noel were returning from this church to our home west of town, a bobcat crossed their path. If these are Mother Nature’s signs that Dorrie is at peace, we are comforted.
First of all, on behalf of the family (Nancy and her partner, Tieg; Pam and me; Dorrie’s grandsons, Kelly and Noel; and Pam and Nancy’s sister, Siri, and her husband Roger), let me thank you for coming to what we hope will be not an occasion to mourn but an opportunity to celebrate a life lived long, 83 years to be exact. To be sure, that life had its bad moments as well as its good and far too many of the ordinary. Still, we are here to remind you, and ourselves, of the mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend, and neighbor who touched lives near and far.
Some of you will remember that Dorrie came to this area, in particular Roswell, in 1945, almost fresh from college as the dewy-eyed bride of Glenn Dennis. There they had three daughters, one whom, Patricia, died soon after birth. In 1956, Dorrie and Glenn divorced, and the daughters want us to remember the sacrifices Dorrie made, as single mother in an age when so little attention was paid to those without spouses, so that they might have as nearly a normal childhood as possible. She went to school to advance her secretarial skills. She worked in the real estate, gas and oil industries. She tried to provide according to her means, which were, as the girls have often recalled for me, not dollars but devotion, not material goods but maternal attentiveness.
I met Dorrie in spring on 1967, when the woman I was dating, Pam, invited me to Roswell for the ritual meeting of the parents, principally her mother. Some of you remember that Dorrie was then married to a taciturn task-master, a fellow who didn’t have a laugh bone in his body. I would later tell Pam I thought the hours had passed uneventfully, if, understandably, a touch awkwardly. Then came the morning after, specifically breakfast. Which, under a tyrant’s watchful and frugal eye consisted of, no kidding, one piece of toast (lightly buttered), one egg (scrambled but lightly) and one lonely strip of bacon. Throughout, of course, we made conversation, or I did if mostly between my ears: Can we go to Denny’s after breakfast, I wondered. Is this what I have to look forward to on my own breakfast table? At the same time, I found Dorrie then as I would for years and years thereafter: gracious, good-humored, smart about the issues that matter, splendidly dressed, poised as a model, and devoted to her girls.
None of that changed over the years. Oh, yes, the tyrant would be divorced, as would an unctuous fellow years later in Dallas. Pam and I married in 1969, our own children would come along directly, and year by year Dorrie was a steadfast presence in our lives, even at long distance. She remembered every event, big or small, that gave our lives shape and hue: birthdays, anniversaries, good fortune, a new job, a vacation, a publication, an election. She was, as I would discover, engaged with the world beyond Roswell, ready with an informed observation about the warp and woof of the world that might have an effect on her daughters and her grandchildren. She was ready with a laugh, often at her own expense; she was generous with her treasure and her love; she expected much of those she shared the planet with; and, not surprisingly, she prized loyalty, wisdom and wit.
Now, let me share with your some “facts” you may not have known about Dorrie. Her family, most notably her father, called her Dot, and one story that typifies their relationship occurred the first day of school, to which they walked together. At some point, probably just after the bell has rung, the Rev. Nees is about to leave for home, and Dorrie, clearly perplexed, scoots over in her desk chair and says, without hesitation, “Here, Dad, there’s room for both of us.”
Later, at the Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa, Idaho, Dot becomes Dottie and, more frequently, Dorothy. Evidently, when she left college for work in Washington as yet another “Rosie the Riveter” toward the end of World War II, she became “Dorrie,” a new name for a new being off on a new adventure.
Pam likes to tell an anecdote that occurs during her years as a cheerleader at Roswell North Junior High. Dorrie had the habit, precious in its way, of dressing up in the school colors, blue and gold, for all the athletic events featuring what were then called the “Puppies.” At one football game, an important one, Dorrie arrived as she always did, manicured and coifed and immaculately dressed, including impossibly high heels. The game is close, thrillingly close, but the Puppies prevail and in the ensuing celebration Dorrie finds herself descending the stands toward the entrance the players use to exit the field. She, of course, stumbles. Pam, yes, is mortified, which is an almost permanent state of being for a teenager. Her mother, it will develop, is nonplussed. She plunges through the throng of football players, who struggle to help her upstream. Later, she will remind Pam that such was a wonderful way to meet guys.
At another turn in their youth, Pam and Nancy found out that their mother once went out on a triple-date (or some version of such) with Dick “Night Train” Lane, Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle. For a time, there was a cocktail napkin as proof. That said, Dorrie would tell you that she was much more concerned with the Roswell Rockets, the local minor league team.
Many of you know that Dorrie had an impressive singing voice. In fact, in one of the yearbooks we have displayed on the table near the stove, you will find a dedication from one her college music teachers who terms Dorrie the “girl with the golden voice.” A fellow student promises to meet her at “The Met.” Some years ago, Nancy, Pam, Dorrie and I went to an Isotopes game in Albuquerque. For the “National Anthem,” we rose. In a moment, all those in Section B, Rows 2 through 15 were turned in our direction. Dorrie was in full throat. Enviably clear and resonant, hers was a voice that turned heads, for she sang with passion and skill; she could hit all the notes, even those that flummox the professionals trot out for our entertainment.
When Dorrie lived with us in Columbus, a few years after we moved there from Cleveland, Dorrie achieved notoriety as a bartender. As Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Ohio State University, I had occasion to throw parties for my faculty and our students. Dorrie was the mistress of the margarita, which she liked salty and tart. Fortunately, tequila was not an indispensable ingredient. It became, rather, an option. Out of tequila, well, use rum. Or whiskey. Or crème de menthe. Needless to say, she was exceedingly popular with all who would end up sleeping at our house in the aftermath.
She also became a candy-marker during this time. “Dorrie’s Desert Desserts” was her product: sand tarts (melted in your mouth, no kidding), toffee (seemed to require every pot, pan and tray in the house), and “Fours,” another top-secret recipe she learned at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Roswell. To help, our friend Susan Weir Ancker, a potter, made plates that Dorrie filled with her delights to mail all over America, one example of which you can see on the table.
Wigs. Dorrie wore them. (As did, to my horror, Pam, even on our wedding day.) This practice ended with the first grandchild, Noel, who, clearly happy to have something new to play with, one day snatched her “fall” from her head. Thereafter, Dorrie went “natural,” though she continued to color her hair for many years, still another effort, wholly admirable, to look her best for those in and outside the family. But Dorrie was not vain—well, no more than any of us. She believed in good manners, good grooming, and good humor. If she had once been picky, she became, over time, less fussy and more tolerant. Virtually until the day she passed, she “did” her nails. She, like her daughters, loved shoes (in fact, we suspect that a complete DNA analysis will discover, in all her blood relatives, a pump-shaped gene alarmingly close to the gene for the credit card).
Let me close with something more obviously sentimental. A few days before she died, while Nancy and Pam were at her bedside in the nursing home, a roadrunner came to her window in Albuquerque, a remarkable happenstance in an urban environment. The day after she died, here in Lincoln, a spectacular rainbow appeared over the mountains east of our deck. Yesterday, while Pam and our older son Noel were returning from this church to our home west of town, a bobcat crossed their path. If these are Mother Nature’s signs that Dorrie is at peace, we are comforted.
Comments:
edunn (September 9, 2007. 11:06pm)
Beautiful.