Dorothy Duncan West ("Dottie") died at her home of eleven years in Chicago, IL on February 2, 2021, some three weeks shy of her 99th birthday. The last surviving of six children born to Ruth (Pipkin) Duncan and Sidney Edward Duncan, Dottie was buried beside her husband, MSgt. John S(amuel) West (d. 1992), in the historic Duncan Cemetery in the Flour Bluff area of Corpus Christi, Texas.

Dottie's long and rich life began near Tahoka in Lynn County, Texas. From there, the family soon migrated to the Corpus area, which her Duncan forebears had settled in previous decades. Dottie grew up there and in nearby Three Rivers with her elder sister, Ruth Ellen ("Ellen"), and younger siblings William ("Bill"), Joseph ("Joe"), and Barbara ("Bobbie" Robins).

Young Dottie helped look after her younger siblings — while, for example, her father worked on the massive ship channel dredging project and her mother managed to feed the team of workers. But she was always academically inclined as well, and was valedictorian of her small high school graduating class.

Following high school, Dottie opted for secretarial school in San Antonio and, after the first of many jobs in that line of work, she met and married (1942) John West ("Johnnie"), a serviceman in the then Army Air Corps (later the U.S. Air Force). The couple subsequently lived in post-war Japan, enjoying the culture there as well as taking part in service-sponsored productions that capitalized on Dottie's impressive dancing abilities and Johnnie's splendid bass voice.

After ten years of marriage, Dottie West gave birth to two healthy girls, Judith Lynn (1952) and Rebecca Diane (1953). In 1958, the family settled in San Antonio, to which they would return from their intermittent travels — to pre-statehood Alaska (early 1950s) and pre-repatriated Okinawa (early 1960s). Throughout, Dottie and Johnny instilled in the girls a sense of adventure and a deep appreciation of unfamiliar people and cultures. Dottie continued to pursue her office administrative career wherever she went, also expanding her other interests — from sewing to pattern design, for instance. She ended her career as chief secretary to the commander of the NCO Academy at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

An immensely loving and proud mother, Dottie supported both of her daughters' personalities and pursuits. And when each young woman departed for distant parts of the country — Judith to Chicago, Rebecca to Oregon — Dottie visited and, after Johnnie's death, went to live with each. In 1997, she moved to Eugene, Oregon, and helped Rebecca raise her cherished grandson, Caleb Duncan West. And in 2010, she joined Judith in Chicago as co-owner of their historic bungalow home.

Rebecca and Judith will hold a small memorial service in Texas as soon as weather and health conditions permit.