Dorothy Lillian Lynch

Dorothy Lillian (Dunton) Lynch, age 92, passed away on Friday, December 11, 2009, at the Mountain View Care Center in Bozeman, MT. A resident of Washington State for most of her life, she moved to Bozeman in 2001 to be near her son and his wife. Dorothy was born August 8, 1917 in Seattle, the only child of Walter Clyde Dunton and Parilee Susan Dunton (Hedges). In Seattle she attended grade school at Woodland Elementary and began her freshman year at Ballard High in 1934. After her parents divorced that year she moved with her mother and step father to Bonneville, WA and later to Vancouver, WA, where she graduated from Vancouver High School (at her father Clyde#8217;s insistence) in 1936. As she began her working life in the Portland-Vancouver area prior to WWII, her friends knew her as the fun-loving, hard-working girl they called #8220;Lil.#8221; In 1943 she married her second husband, Joseph Wesley Woolley, and had her only child, Wesley, in 1944. Despite two early and unsuccessful marriages, she found the true love of her life in the person of Joseph Bernard Lynch of Vancouver, who she married in Stevenson, WA in 1949. Later, as she settled into mid-life #8220;Lil#8221; became better known to her friends as #8220;Dottie,#8221; still fun-loving, but content to be the wife and constant traveling companion Air Force sergeant Joe Lynch. Dottie and Joe loved traveling, as well as card playing and bowling with friends. They spent several years in Hawaii and Korea as well as many other stations in the US before retiring in 1966 and settling by a lake on a golf course near Lakeview, WA. After Joe#8217;s untimely death in 1975, Dottie moved back to Vancouver, WA, where she lived among family and old friends until her move to Bozeman. During her final years Dottie suffered a slow decline of health due to dementia. She died peacefully in the loving care of her family and the staff at Mountain View Care Center and Bozeman Deaconess Hospice. She was preceded in death by her husband Joseph and is survived by her son, Wesley Lynch and her daughter-in-law, Linda Bell. She is warmly remembered by many friends who knew her in Bozeman and elsewhere. An impromptu wake in Dorothy#8217;s honor was organized by friends and family on the evening of her death. There will be no other services. Funeral arrangements are being made by Dahl Funeral and Cremation Service, after which her remains will be buried along side Joseph#8217;s at the Parklawn Cemetery in Vancouver, WA.