The Dolmars

Dorothy Dolmar — 11/28/1920 to 6/14/2009

My grandmother died last week. She’d been dealing with Alzheimer’s disease for years. At the end she passed peacefully. When my grandfather died, I gave a eulogy. Since that time the computer that I wrote that eulogy has been retired, I grabbed the hard drive and it’s sitting in my basement. I keep thinking one of these days I’ll put in a case so that I can get some of the data off, but it hasn’t happened.

I don’t want grandma’s eulogy to go the same way. So I’m taking a different tact with it. I’m posting it. It’ll be indexed and archived by people with really serious data backup plans. (I’m looking at you Internet Archive and Google).  It’ll be preserved in HTML which means that decades from now, I’ll still be able open it and parse it without needing to resort to any software more fancy than a browser or text editor. And if someone goes looking for my grandma on the internet, well her name isn’t that common so I suspect it’ll be found. I’m hoping it’s a good way to give her memory a bit more life, and she certainly deserves that.

So without further ado, here’s the text of the eulogy that I spoke at my grandmother’s funeral last Friday.

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We are only months from the 10 year anniversary of the last time I stood here. In October of 1999, I gave my grandfather’s eulogy on this very spot.

I have two distinct memories from that event. At the time I shared the story of how my grandparents courtship began. They had been in a class in high school together and at some point my grandfather had decided he was smitten with her. Unfortunately, he was scheduled to be transfered to a different class. On the last day on his way out of the class room, he stopped at her desk and said “I’m sure going to miss you.”

It was the start of something beautiful, and a sentiment that today I most certainly share. I am going to miss her.

The other memory I have from that time was stepping forward to give my grandfather’s eulogy. I was a bit nervous and a bit emotional. I started to talk, and I choked up a bit at first.

Then Dorothy, my grandmother, started to heckle me. That might not be the choice of words she would have used. She noticed my faltering speech, and interrupted me saying “louder”. I blinked started again, and she wasn’t satisfied so she did it again saying “louder” this time gesturing with her hands.

I gathered myself and then I began to speak clearly. After that she sat back and nodded to herself satisfied that her husband would receive a good eulogy and her grandson would acquit himself well.

She grew up in a time when there were still milkmen delivering food on a daily basis because most houses didn’t have refrigeration to preserve it for a week. Within a few years of her high school graduation, the United States was involved in a war that spanned the globe and ushered in the nuclear age. She lived to see the advent of television, space travel, and the civil rights movement.

My grandmother was a joyful student her whole life. She loved to learn. In elementary school, when the class stumbled while diagramming a sentence, the teacher would say “Well, let’s ask the class grammarian.” They would then turn to her, and she would invariably have the correct answer. As far as I know the only time one her teachers decided to contact her parents to express concern about her was when she rhymed her maiden name “Friskey” with “Whiskey” in a limerick for a class assignment.

There were, however, some things she refused to learn. Driving for instance. On her first attempt she started the car and began driving. She turned a corner and then proceeded to keep right on turning until she crashed into the curb.

It seems she either forgot or had never quite understood that after turning the car you need to turn the wheel back to an upright position to go straight in the new direction.

On another occasion, my grandfather had shown her how to start the car, and how to brake. He had taught her how to shift (and steer this time). And he thought they were ready for her to go out on the road.

They pulled into an intersection, had a problem shifting and killed the engine. At this point she could have restarted the car and proceeded on her way. Instead as the story goes she screamed “Eek. Eek. Eek.”, throwing her hands over her head, and then got out of the car.

My grandfather drove them both home. That was her last driving lesson. She never drove again. In a culture like ours where cars are a primary symbol of independence, it would be easy imagine her as a shut in, but that wasn’t Dorothy.

Instead, she walked. She walked all over Richfield — to and from her school, the grocery store, the library. And when she couldn’t walk she took a bus or a cab. Into her late 70s, you could find her walking down to the corner or to the Hub with a suitcase in hand, catching the 18 downtown and then catching a Greyhound north to Duluth where she would be met by grandfather at the bus station.

That was typical of her. She chose to meet the problems she faced head on with determination and enthusiasm. I remember moving her into the Masonic Home. Half a year earlier, she had moved out of the home on Stevens Avenue and into an assisted living facility and that had worked for a while but her Alzheimer’s had progressed and they were no longer able to provide the kind of care there that she really needed.

We were lucky. We found a place that could provide the care she needed. But the move was scary. She was moving from an assisted living facility that looked a lot like an apartment into an Alzheimer’s specific wing of the new facility. It meant directly acknowledging that she had a chronic terminal disease. The day of the move I picked her up and drove her over. As I helped her through the doors, into the facility for the first time, she threw open her arms and declared “Dorothy has arrived. Yoo hoo. Hello. I’m here. Dorothy has arrived.” She acted like a rock star greeting her fans. As far as I’m concerned she was a rock star.

She was an idealist. She believed that we can make this world a better place by reaching and out caring for the people around us. That the little things mattered. That courtesy, diligence, and perseverance are the keys to excellence. That the actions of one person make a real difference.

So naturally, she became a teacher. She taught for 27 years. Now let’s stop for a second and think about that. 27 years. If we assume an average class size 26 kids, that’s 700 students. Seven hundred people who learned handwriting, mathematics, civics and culture from her. And those are just the named disciplines. There were life lessons, too.

She loved children. As teacher, she expected her students to excel. She wanted the best for and from each of them and would ask for better if she didn’t think she had gotten it. One of the hardest times, I had with her was a weekend when I was staying with her and grandpa up at the cabin. I wanted to go out and play, but I had a school assignment that had come north with me.

I needed to learn my states and capitals. It was straight rote memorization, and I hated it. I tried, but it was hard. I started fuss. She didn’t let me off the hook. She held firm and worked with me. She patiently held steady and walked me through them. Again and again. And eventually it got easier and after a few hours. I did know them.

I still know them. Well the states anyway.

Today, I’m thinking back on that and thinking again about those 700 students. And I find that I think she was right we can make this world a better place by reaching and out caring for the people around us. That the little things do matter. That courtesy, diligence, and perseverance are the keys to excellence and that the actions of one person can make a real difference.

The world is a little darker today without her in it, but I have hope that her legacy will live on. Not just in those of us gathered here, but in the lives of all of those that she touched. And for her, I wish a joyous reunion with grandpa and a new life unencumbered by illness or pain. Travel safely grandma. I’m sure going to miss you.

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