Regardless of my age, I was always Timmy to her, things that she didn't like were, "Just Foolishness", and she is one of the few people that can get me to leave the nice warm confines of the Phoenix area for the bone chilling cold of my native Maine in December. Monday morning, I recieved the phone call I knew would always come, but never wanted to get. My Grandmother, Dorothy "Dot" Swearingen, passed away peacefully...
She was born in Bath on Dec. 28, 1917, the oldest child of three. She grew up on Shepard Street with her family at the old Engine 3 Fire Station, where her father was a long-time driver, dating back to the horse-drawn steamer.
In the era when many people did not drive or have automobiles, she often used her car to collect call firefighters as they dashed along city streets in response to an alarm. She extended that same courtesy to those destined for out of town calls on winding back country roads. While headed for one fire she encountered a fire engine stopped by the side of the street near a red fire alarm box. Its driver, working in a relief volunteer capacity, was intently studying a city map. He was promptly led to the correct box location.
A 1935 honors graduate of Morse High School, she was inducted into the National Honor Society during her junior year. At Morse she was active in myriad student activities, including girl’s sports and cheerleading. After graduation she was a member and officer of the Bath High School Alumni Association where she worked for decades on the annual alumni banquet. She was also a member of Club 35, an organization of her fellow graduates to facilitate reunions in later years.
On September 3, 1938, she married my Grandfather, Charles, a West Virginia native. He died Sept. 13, 1992, 20 years after his retirement as Chief of the Bath Fire Department. During War II, the couple lived in South Portland, moving to Wesley Street in Bath at war’s end in 1945.
For many years she was election warden for Bath’s Ward 2, starting when the polling place was located at the old South Street School. During the ensuing years she was active as a Red Cross blood bank volunteer and also served with a variety of other non-profit groups including The Cosmopolitan Club, The Drama Club, The Bath Garden Club, the Bath Citizens Advisory Committee and Genesta Chapter, Order of Eastern Star. An avid history buff, my Grandmother traced our family’s genealogy to apply for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution, Col. Dummer Sewall Chapter, where she was a past regent. She was also a member of the Woolwich Historical Society, where she spent many Saturdays as a docent at its Maine farmhouse museum. As a sixty plus year communicant of Grace Episcopal Church, she was on a variety of parish committees and a former member of the vestry. She retired as director of the Altar Guild on her 80th birthday.
To me though, she'll always just be Grandma...
Recent Comments