Dorothy Polly Celebration of Life - Fernridge Faith Center

Dorothy Polly was born February 17th, 1939. Born in San Bernadino, California to Homer and Olive Baker.

She loved animals and she raised goats and rabbits and did 4-H. Also in 4-H she did sewing and canning. She went to church and was involved in her community with numerous organizations. And we see as we go through her life, really whatever Dorothy put her hands to she succeeded.

She was a good girl. She went to church and was involved in her community, numerous organizations. And as we see as we go through her life, really, whatever Dorothy put her hands to, she succeeded. Whatever she put her hands to, you give her enough time. And she pretty much became the leader of that group and took charge of whatever she was doing.

After high school, she went to USC and majored in electrical engineering. Yeah. Wow. So, she did all her own electrical work around the house. And she was even smart enough to cross over to the other side and do her own plumbing. Also, her husband went to UCLA. So, I’m sure the USC UCLA football game every year took on some fun meanings there.

In both high school and college, she played Clarinet and played in the marching band. She met Jerry & they got married right after high school. December 20, 1957, she got married. She was 18, which makes you think maybe she met him in high school. And you’d be wrong.

She met him when she was 14 years old at a summer camp. They had some interest in one another. But there were some protocols on how all that worked back in those days. When Jerry turned 16, he would come over to the house on Sunday afternoons and hang out with the family and hang out with Dorothy and get to spend time with them on Sunday afternoons. And the family really enjoyed Jerry.

And everyone can kind of see where it was going. And they got married soon after high school. Together they had three kids: Deborah May, Craig and Bruce.
And then Jerry passed away in April of 2000, and Dorothy remarried Chuck and was married to him for 14 years.

Whatever Dorothy did, she pretty much led. She was a leader. Leader of the girl Scouts. She was a 4H leader. She was a Weight Watcher lecturer. She helped run the family business and helped with sales and doing things with the family business. She was the president of the Beefalo association of America. And you guys sold beefalo Or had beefalo out there for quite a while.
You still have beefalo. They’re a little deluded. Funny.

You would think that since she was from San Bernardino. You would think that, uh, Deb moved up here to the Northwest and the family followed, but that’s actually not how it worked. Deb moved up here in the mid-80s, and Dorothy and Jerry soon followed. Dorothy started coming. Deb started coming to the Methodist church here.

And then mom started coming along with them back in the 80s and, uh, just really, uh, infusing herself with our community. She loved music. This is her piano. By the way she loved music. She loved playing this piano and playing other pianos.
She loved to sing. She loved it. She had a great voice and sang in the choir. She taught in Sunday school. She led Bible studies.

Some of you might not know the adventurous side of Dorothy. She loved water skiing and cliff diving, like jumping off the cliffs and diving into the water. She was, uh, again, very adventurous. She was part of a gun dog hunting club and part of the Future Farmers of America. In fact, she enjoyed in the gun club.
She enjoyed shooting skeet. This little lady I can just see with that shotgun in her hand and a smile in her face.

She loved the good old pastime which has been lost, probably A few generations now. But she loved the good old pastime of inviting friends over to play cards. Anyone here ever joined her at the table to play cards? There you go. Ruthless. What was the favorite game? Skip Bo. I also heard that there was canasta and pinochle, hand and foot, little hearts, some spades. I heard she was, really, really, formidable with the cards. She performed and sang in talent shows.

Most of you didn’t notice that she did stained glass windows. Now she did not do these stained-glass windows here, but I wouldn’t put it past her to be able to pull it off because she was so talented. But she would do stained glass windows. She’d make windows. She’d make Christmas tree ornaments and hand those out.
She loved gardening in the greenhouse. And uh, another thing that she loved doing and really spent a lot of time with her life is she liked to sew, sewing and quilting. How many of the kids and grandkids got a present for Christmas? Yeah, there you go. that was a shirt, a sweater or something that.
Matching dresses. I also heard that she made matching shirts for the men at times too. So, yeah, ah, um, she was a member of the Red Hat Society. And so being a member of the Red Hat Society, you can only have one favorite color, and that is red. Purple.

Purple. If you don’t know the Red Hat Society, they have a red hat. Everything else is purple. And so, uh, she loved the color purple. She was a faithful, hard working, and always a positive woman.

She had three kids, nine grandkids, and 17 great grandkids with two on the way. And if you don’t know who those two are, you guys gotta talk amongst yourself and figure all that out. But she was incredibly active, intelligent, and a talented human being.

There’s a Bible verse that reminds me of Dorothy in Ephesians 2. It says this:
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. God prepares us to do good works. And I can just imagine him sitting down at his workbench one day and Dorothy comes across. I don’t know how it all worked, you know what I’m saying? It was a long time ago, but Dorothy comes across his desk and Amy’s like, oh, I’m gonna create.

And he just didn’t stop. He spent some extra time on her with, ah, all the characteristics and qualities. He formed a leader. He formed a skilled worker that succeeded at pretty much everything she put her hands to, he formed a faithful woman, that she was faithful to come to church.
She was faithful to do good. In fact, there’s another Bible verse that reminds me of her, says this: “Let us not become weary in doing good”. And, like, that’s just so much Dorothy. Just if it’s the right thing to do, I’m going to do it.
We’re just going to keep going. We’re going to keep doing it. And, uh, we could probably spend hours talking about all the things that she did to show that goodness and the handiwork of God. Now, again, I’ve only known her the last four years, and I’d like to say she would be here every Sunday, but there was this thing called Oregon winters that, um, she decided that she didn’t want to have a part of. And so every winter she would go down to Arizona, and she had a community of friends and a church down there in Arizona.
And then she’d come back here for the summers. Until, uh, two winters ago, she fell, hit her head, and, uh, Deb ran down there. Probably some of the other family members went down there. And you could tell it changed things. It definitely physically changed things.

It was probably the first time in her life that she ever slowed down. And for us. What I like to look back on, when I look at someone’s life is: what can I learn? What can I take from their basket and apply? And what I see is a woman that from a young age decided, I’m going to do it God’s way.

She’d go to church camp, and she’d be part of church, brought her family. In fact, some of you were like, oh, ah, Grandma or Mom. She’d always drag me to church and might not always have the fondest memories of it. I hope you do. But, um, she was very faithful to do things God’s way.

And it just challenges me because I see how she did things right in a lot of ways. You know what’s amazing, by the way, about doing it God’s way is (I say all this to my church. Just a little side note.) God’s good at using imperfect people to accomplish his perfect will, meaning he’s not expecting us to be perfect. Dorothy’s not perfect.

She was an amazing woman, but she wasn’t perfect. But God uses imperfect people to accomplish his perfect will. And that’s me, and that’s you. And finding a way to do it his way like Dorothy did, is, uh, a challenge for myself. She was confident, capable, and adventurous woman. Oh, my goodness. Because what I said was not that funny. Yeah, that’s a great picture.

I just want to give us an opportunity to tell stories. I don’t know how long the slideshow goes. I don’t know how many pictures there are. But does anyone here want to start us off? Because it’s always hardest to be the first person to start.
But with the life that she led and all the things that she did there are plenty of stories that you could share. I gave a quick synopsis, kind of covering over her life, and I’m sure I missed a few things, and I might have been wrong on a few things. So, if there’s some stories or information you think would be fun to pass along, we’d love to hear it.

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