Dorothy Viola (ver Strate) Calvin

Dr. Dorothy Viola Calvin (née ver Strate), educator, author, and beloved mother and wife, passed away peacefully at the age of 96 in the presence of her husband Allen on Tuesday, March 24, in her apartment at the Frank Residences in San Francisco, California.

She was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Herman ver Strate and Christina (née Plakmeyer) ver Strate. She grew up as a farmer’s daughter in Holland, Michigan, a town where few went on to a college education. Spurred by one of her teachers, who recognized her talent early on, she was accepted to Michigan State University, where she received a bachelor’s of arts in Psychology. 

It was also at Michigan State that she met her future husband, Allen Calvin. After a whirlwind three-month romance, which due to a difference in religious affiliation did not meet with the approval of Dorothy’s family, Dorothy and Allen eloped, crossing state lines to Indiana to be married by a justice of the peace. Dorothy and Allen prospered, growing more in love with each passing year, celebrating their 72nd anniversary in October. Eventually, Dorothy’s family grew to embrace Allen, recognizing the deep bond Allen and Dorothy shared.

Dorothy had four children, Duif, Kris, Bufo, and Scott. She later said that she thought of raising a family and running a household as a particularly rewarding “job,” by which she meant an endeavor she could pursue with passion and intensity. Even after her children were grown with families of their own, she continued to find joy and a creative outlet in managing the household, such as when she individually picked out and arranged more than a hundred delft-style tiles for her kitchen, many with artwork or pithy sayings like “To teach is to touch a life forever.”

Beginning in the 1960s, along with her husband Allen, Dorothy was an active supporter of human and civil rights movements, which brought the family into contact with figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, and Rhody McCoy. Coretta and Rhody remained family friends until their passings. 

In the 1970s, Dorothy reentered the workforce, learning computer programming, including Cobol, and rising to manage a team of programmers at Pacific Bell. When the company wanted her to change locations to a workplace much farther from home, Dorothy chose to leave her career at the phone company to become an educator, teaching at Skyline College, the City College of San Francisco, and Cañada College. It was during this time that she developed a how-to manual on DOS programming that was an industry standard for years.

In 1991, at the age of 61, she completed her doctorate in Organization and Leadership at the University of San Francisco, writing her dissertation on an analysis of Hebrew and Arabic language instruction for students of varied backgrounds at Ulpan Akiva in Israel.

Throughout her life, Dorothy was an active leader in many community organizations. She was a vice president for the League of Women Voters, president of the Bullis-Purissima Parents’ Group, on the board of directors for Volunteers for Israel, and chief financial officer, deacon, and founding member at Grace Community Church of San Francisco. While she personally preferred the company of small groups to large events, she grew to embrace hosting events in her home for universities, politicians, religious organizations, authors, and charitable causes that she supported.

She was also an avid sports fan, cheering on the Giants, Warriors, 49ers, University of San Francisco Dons, and the Stanford Cardinal. She participated in athletics as well, first through tennis, and then later through road races, culminating in running her first marathon when she was in her 50s.

Dorothy’s other interests included the family pets and animal welfare more broadly, vegetable and flower gardening, and chocolate, of which she always had a large supply stashed away in case of emergency.

Dorothy loved to travel with her husband Allen, often accompanied by some of their children and grandchildren, making trips to Türkiye, Tahiti, the Soviet Union, Kenya, Thailand, the Galápagos Islands, the Amazon River, and many other locales. For their sixtieth wedding anniversary, she and Allen took a trip to India, renewing their wedding vows in a ceremony presided over by a Hindu priest. Once her children were grown, Dorothy made a habit of writing travelogues for family members who weren’t on the trip, highlighting the architecture, culture, and people she saw along the way. 

While many of these trips were primarily for adventure, Dorothy and Allen also used them to connect with distant relatives, primarily in the Netherlands and Israel, with Dorothy doing much of the genealogical research to track them down. One such trip brought them to Lithuania, where Dorothy became interested in the Litvak Holocaust. The research she wrote up based on her investigation is now housed in Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.

Dorothy is survived by her husband Allen; her children Duif, Kris, Bufo and his wife Lura, and Scott and his wife Erin; her grandchildren KT, David and his wife Becki, Leo and his wife Jessica, Erin, Matt, Nathan and his wife Amelia, Ann and her husband Jack; and her great-granchildren C.J. and Zelda.

In lieu of flowers, Dorothy requested donations to the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

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