Dorothy C. McAnarney, age 105, passed away peacefully on November 20, 2024.
There really was a Dorothy from Kansas.
Dorothy Cleo Bellman was born in Hammond, Kansas in 1919 and raised in Paola, Kansas where she read every children’s book in her small hometown library before age 10. Dorothy graduated from high school at the age of 16, and getting a teaching certificate shortly thereafter, she became the teacher at a one-room schoolhouse in nearby Drexel, Missouri.
Later marrying her high school sweetheart and musician, Joe McAnarney, Dorothy and Joe traveled the Midwest with big bands in the 1940’s. When the big band arrived in Chicago in 1952, Dorothy and Joe settled in Elmhurst. Dorothy became a teacher at Lindop Elementary School in Broadview, teaching there until 1982.
Retirement brought many activities through her church, The First United Methodist Church of Elmhurst, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Elmhurst Public Library. Utilizing the library’s Outreach Program, Dorothy led many reading groups at her retirement home in Elmhurst.
Dorothy was preceded in death by her husband, Joseph Vincent McAnarney, and is survived by her son, Joseph Edward McAnarney, his wife Linda, grandson Colby McAnarney, granddaughters Kristia Adrian and Megan Pfeiffer, and six great grandchildren.
To support the Youth Services at her small hometown library, a program called “Dorothy’s Mulberry Tree” has been established at the Paola Free Library, and donations to that program are welcomed. You can read about Dorothy and the mulberry tree at “About Us” on the library’s website.
Interment will be private.
Arrangements in care of Elmhurst Community Funeral Home – THE AHLGRIM CHAPEL, www.ElmhurstFH.com or (630) 834-3515.
