Obituary of Marian Dorsey

Marian Agnes Dorsey (Hammond), 78, a retired Texas public schools teacher, died July 1st at a Tucson, Arizona nursing home from complications of a stroke she had sixteen months earlier in Fort Worth. Marian was born March 16,1933 in Fort Worth to William Hammond and Margaret Hammond (Forsyth). Her mother and father came from small towns in Texas to attend Texas Christian University, where they met. Marian and her older sister, Shirley, grew up around TCU, where their father worked as a history professor and their mother worked as a librarian. During the Great Depression her father, William Hammond, served as both Fort Worth city councilman and mayor; he was part of President Roosevelt's New Deal Democrats, working to help the disadvantaged and implement other reformist policies in Fort Worth. This helped form Marian's lifelong personal advocacy to support progressive politicians and organizations that worked on behalf of those who were less fortunate. Marian would take a part of her Teacher Retirement System pension each month and send a large portion of it to at least four worthy organizations. She must have been on the mailing list of almost every non-profit organization dedicated to helping the downtrodden in the United States. The house she lived in for years by the railroad tracks had chalk marks on the front curb, a sign homeless people put there to show others where they could knock and get a sandwich and a glass of milk. Some days Marian would hand out ten sandwiches to homeless people, always with a kind or encouraging word. She also had a soft spot for downtrodden cats. At any one time she was adopting or feeding up to eight homeless cats in her neighborhood. She was a longtime supporter of the Texas Humane Society. Marian graduated from Pascal High School in 1950 and earned a bachelor's degree from TCU in English and Teaching in 1954. She taught in the Texas Public School system for the next 30 years, much of that time in the Fort Worth Independent School District at Carter High School. While teaching in Port Arthur, Texas she met her husband, Leonard Dorsey, and they were married in the chapel at University Christian Church in 1958. The marriage produced two sons, Dan and Alan. After retiring from the Texas Public School System in 1985, she went to Germany and taught in the DoD schools for five years. An avid traveller while living abroad, Marian travelled to every country in Europe, including all the Eastern Bloc countries and the Soviet Union, as well as Turkey, Israel, and North Africa. After she returned to the U.S., she travelled to almost every state in the U.S., either driving on her own or travelling by tour bus. There will be a private memorial service and scattering of ashes in Fort Worth with family and close friends. In lieu of flowers, financial donations may be made to the Tarrant County Food Bank. She is preceded in death by her parents, her youngest son, Alan Dorsey, and her older sister, Shirley Swallow. She is survived by her oldest son and daughter-in-law, Dan and Shelly Dorsey, her nephew, Ben Swallow, and her ex-husband, Leonard Dorsey.