Dorothy Thompson

Dorothy Ruth Peterson was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 2, 1925. She was the second child of Ruth and Charley Peterson of Elmwood Park, Illinois. In her youth, Dorothy experienced the tragedies of those who lived through the Depression and World War II. By the time she was 20 years old, she had suffered the loss of her brother in the Batton Death March in the Philipenes. She watched her grieving mother take up the cause to preserve the memories of the young soldiers lost and abandoned there, and she stood by her father who two years earlier had encouraged his son to proudly enlist in the United States Army. No one realized how these early events would shape and cement Dorothy's never-ending commitment to family.

I am Dorothy's daughter. I am one of the people who benefitted from what Mom's hardships created in her. They made her strong (some say stubborn) and determined to love and care for all of us until the bitter end. And we have all taken a turn depending on Mom for support.

One of my early memories of Mom helping me through a loss was the night she came into my room to tell me that Grandma had passed away. Mom woke me gently and gave me the news that Grandma was in a better place, no longer suffering from cancer. We talked in the dark for a while, Mom's arm around me as the shock set in. The reality of "passing away" was yet understood, but to this day I remember Mom saying as she got up to leave, "We must now live for the living. That's what it's all about."

And we did live for the living. Mom cared for her father, just as she had cared for her mother. She was there for him as he experienced the health problems of his final years. I was only 25 then, and it wasn't until I became a mature woman myself that I understood just how devoted Mom was to the people she loved.

Mom and I shared the passing of the most important man in our lives. My father suffered a very sad and difficult death that endured the course of almost 2 months.