A Fitting Tribute To Dottie

My little tribute to Dottie hardly did her justice, so I am pasting in the entire text of the obituary printed in the Springdale News. --Carol

Dottie Saint-Clair: 1914-2006

Dorothy Margaret Saint-Clair came into this world on September 26, 1914, bringing a zest for life that infected everyone she knew. She left us with grace and dignity on April 26, 2006. She was 91 years young.

Dottie was born to Lewis and Edith Miller in Gresham, Oregon, and was raised a farm girl six miles east of town. At Lusted Grade School, she received a trophy in the eighth grade for most popular student in school. In high school, she competed in track events, winning numerous medals, and danced and sang in school musicals. She graduated from Gresham High but learned the most from "The School of Hard Knocks," as she was fond of saying.

She married the neighbor boy, Oba St. Clair, on November 13, 1935, in Portland. (Oba’s the one who got her hooked on motorcycles!) The next summer, they had their only child, Shirley Margaret St. Clair. No daughter was ever more loved. They first lived in logging camps around the state and even in a tent in the tall timber country of Idaho (on a remote hillside with a deck and marauding bears). They moved to Brownsville in 1940 and then to Eugene in 1946. Dottie moved to Springfield in the 1980s.

She loved to tell of the logging camp years with no electricity or running water. One favorite story was of how she would make many trips daily to haul water in buckets up the long, very steep path from Panther Creek to camp. Water to drink, to bathe (once a week in a tin wash tub), to cook, to wash and so forth. That’s a lot of water. It took a lot of stamina and strength. And Dottie had it, from her days on the farm helping her Dad in the fields and playing baseball with him. Hardball, not softball, she was always quick to point out! A great sorrow in her life was losing her Dad when she was only 19.

Outdoor work was Dottie’s specialty. Digging ditches, building rocks walls, pushing a heavy wheelbarrow. She reveled in it. Housework was a duty, cooking a pain. But, boy, you’d never know it from the yummy food she fixed. Her pies were legendary. Lemon meringue, chocolate cream, banana cream, Bing cherry and on and on. Her pie crust was perfection. A neighbor once said, "I know how you do it. You only use your hands to mix the dough, don’t you?" That was her secret. Plus, knowing just when to stop mixing and start rolling.

Dottie was very shy at heart, very modest, and very, very talented. The move to Brownsville brought a dream-come-true. She got a piano. With only three months of lessons as a girl, her natural gifts came through as she and that piano became one. The results? Dottie, the red-hot piano player. She favored upbeat swinging styles, such as Frankie Carle's complicated jazz arrangements, but also loved and displayed an incredibly sensitive touch with classics like Prelude in C# Minor.

And oh, how Dottie loved to dance to that swing music. She could outlast anyone on the dance floor and be ready for more. Dottie was born to move to the beat!

Another item in the talent department, Dottie also had a great eye for design and color. Whether it was putting together the perfect color-coordinated outfit; decorating and furnishing the tent, the mill shack or the house; or being drawn to the sleek, curvy shape of a certain 1957 car - she knew style. She also upholstered her own furniture and was a top-notch seamstress, bar none.

In contrast, as a proud member of the National Rifle Association, Dottie liked to target practice, using rifles and handguns. She modestly said she couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, but she still loved the sport.

"Dot-Dot," as her great-grandkids called her, had a varied work history. In Brownsville she was a plane spotter for the Civilian Air Patrol during World War II; she was a waitress in Burbank for 3 months while Oba was going to Watchmaking School (she fibbed & told them she had experience); and in Eugene, she was the Custom Drapery Consultant/Coordinator for Sears and then went into real estate until she retired in 1994.

But work was only a sideline. In addition to music, Dottie’s real passion was for Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Corvette sports cars; the faster, the better. Her red and white 1957 Corvette, nicknamed "Hot Dot," won many honors at car shows and was a crowd pleaser. She didn’t trailer "Hot Dot" to the shows. She drove, loving every minute of being on the road with her "Baby." Portland; Park City, Utah; Port Ludlow, Washington; and Victoria, B.C. (twice). Dottie and "Hot Dot" were even featured in the national magazine, "Classic Chevy World."

As for Harleys, Dottie never lost her love of that special Harley sound, look and feel and was always on the lookout for the model that was just her size. She still dreamed of climbing on, kick-starting a blue and chrome beauty, revving the motor and hitting the road again soon.

It is impossible to do Dottie justice with words. But here are a few to start: fun-loving; incredible sense of humor; music in her soul; talent galore; looking out for others; loving and gentle; sweet and rough ‘n’ ready; shy, yet feisty; sensitive and a dreamer; AND ahead of her time - riding motorcycles before gals did that; feeling badly for the Native American Indians and thinking the pollution of the Willamette River was a terrible thing - all before they became popular causes; and making sure she was referred to as a homemaker. She never, ever considered herself a housewife, and thought "smart citizen" was a much more fitting name than "senior citizen," thank you very much!

Dottie was forever young and girlish at heart, referring to herself as "Big Kid" and her daughter, Shirley, as "Little Kid."

Always a good sport, looking for the silver lining, Dottie made us laugh and find joy in simple things. Like hanging a wash on the clothesline, or noticing the shape and color of a rock, or climbing a tree, or wading in the ocean. But we found the most and best joy in her.

Dottie leaves behind her treasured family - her daughter, Shirley, of Eugene; two grandsons, Randy Myers of Portland and Steve Myers of Denver; and two great-grandkids, Ben and Jessica Myers of Denver.

We all love and miss her.

A celebration of life was at 1 p.m., Sunday, April 30, at Major Family Funeral Home. The graveside ceremony was May 1 at the Miller Family Gravesite in Pleasant Home, Ore. Remembrances for Dottie Saint-Clair can be made to the American Lung Association of Oregon, 7420 SW Bridgeport Rd. No. 200, Tigard, Ore. 97224. Specify for pulmonary fibrosis research. Major Family Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.