OBITUARY: MYRTLE IRENE DOBSON

The other day, someone said to me that everyone deserves an obituary. It seems disrespectful, she said, when one is not provided. Coincidentally, I had been thinking along the same lines because I discovered that no obituary was written for my aunt, Myrtle Dobson. It would have fallen to my dad and Aunt Ethel (her siblings) to provide the information, and to be fair, at the time of her passing, they might have felt there wasn’t much to say. Or, maybe they didn’t know how to state the facts of her life in a positive way. Or, they might have been honoring Aunt Lynn’s wishes.

In the last 25 years or so, obituary style has changed from a few cold facts written by a newspaper staffer to an affectionate tribute written by family or friends, so with affection, I have written an obituary for Aunt Lynn.

MYRTLE IRENE DOBSON

Myrtle Irene (Lynn) Dobson died at the Orofino Convalescent Center on December 28, 1971, at the age of 77. She had been in ill health for several years.

Myrtle was born on Little Bear Ridge near Troy, Idaho, on March 28, 1894, the second of the six children of Julian and Ina Dickson Dobson. She was just two years old when the family homesteaded in the Gilbert community south of Orofino, Idaho, where she grew up.

Myrtle’s early schooling was at the one-room Dickson Schoolhouse at Gilbert. She later graduated from Lewiston High School with the class of 1918. A talented sketch artist and amateur photographer, in the 1930s she worked for photography studios in Portland, Oregon, retouching and tinting photographs. During World War II, she was an office worker.

A farm girl at heart, Myrtle was always willing to return to the family farm and assist her parents, but she was also at home in Portland and Seattle where she took advantage of the cultural and educational benefits of city life.

In the 1950s, Myrtle returned to the family farm to care for her mother. These were productive years in which Myrtle wrote a history of her mother’s life and organized family memorabilia while also maintaining the house and gardens. After her mother's passing in 1957, she served as caregiver / companion for several individuals. Later, she cared for her brother, Earle Dobson, at his home in Nezperce until ill health forced them both to move to the Orofino Convalescent Center.

An independent spirit, Myrtle never married. She was a loved member of her extended family and will be missed. She is survived by her brothers, Vance Dobson and Earle Dobson, of Orofino; her sisters, Ethel Robinson of Clarkston and Shirley Shockley of Seattle; one nephew and four nieces. She was predeceased by her parents and her older sister, Eva Pearl Sanders. KW