Dorothy Swan, Old Saybrook Historical Society librarian and active volunteer, has died at 87

Dorothy Swan, librarian at the Old Saybrook Historical Society, died of pancreatic cancer on Sunday, July 3 at the Connecticut Hospice in Branford.

For more than two decades, she was a contributor in many volunteer roles, most memorably as the librarian at the Frank Stevenson Archives. Though her genealogical and historical research she was a valued asset to the society, beloved by her colleagues for her sunny disposition, and appreciated by the countless local and overseas visitors whose quests she tackled with enthusiasm.

Born Dorothy Eleanor Clark on Dec. 5, 1923, in Virginia's Big Stone Gap, she grew up in Carney's Point in New Jersey in the house her father built by the Delaware River across from Wilmington.

Her parents were featured soloists at various churches, and for eight years her mother took young Dottie into Philadelphia for lessons with their voice teacher. She performed tap dance and acrobatics, and sang in operettas as a teen. Dorothy graduated Valedictorian at Penns Grove Regional High School in 1941, and won the prestigious American Legion Citizenship medal for outstanding character.

A talent for precision needlework was fostered by her grandmother at an early age with the help of a child-sized Singer sewing machine, and by her twenties she could make a coat, an evening gown, and upholster furniture. She could also fly a Piper Cub.

Having been first in her typing and office-skills classes, she chose to attend Keystone Secretarial School in suburban Philadelphia, and would hold a variety of clerical and teaching positions over the years. But she never stopped using her award-winning sewing skills, for custom jobs, pieces for charity, and dresses for her three daughters (and their dolls). Her first needlepoint – of Hokusai's "The Great Wave" – would go on display in Clinton's library in 1976, and the Acton Library would exhibit her exquisite petit point miniature-reproduction carpets and remarkably delicate knit-lacework.

Dorothy's mother played her grand piano, and had her husband and son haul in a 12-foot tree at Christmas. She bought frilly dresses for her only daughter, wanted her to go to finishing school, and hoped she'd have a big society wedding. But spunky Dottie would prefer wearing overalls, buy herself a canoe when she was the mother of four, and had her own idea of the right husband.

When at the last minute the soldier who was to take 22-year-old Dot on a blind date couldn't go, someone hollered "Get Swanie!" By the end of that date with Donald Swan they were holding hands, and instead of a big wedding, the handsome Black-Irish "substitute," who was born in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen, married her in April 1945, in uniform, on a 3-day pass, in a dining room, with a "society" of seven family and friends. And for 57 years, this man of innate nobility was a loving husband and father.

When Sgt. Swan was sent to the Philippine Islands to defuse live munitions, Dorothy and little Susanna joined him; they'd return in 1950 to Fort Bragg, NC, with daughter Eileen, called Molly.

While Don studied horticulture on the GI Bill at the Long Island Agricultural and Technical Institute at Farmingdale (later SUNY), the many veterans lived in a village on campus. Dorothy's first library job would be in an old barn. When Don's floriculture class staged a mock wedding for displaying their bouquets, Dorothy made satin gowns Susie and Molly wore as flower girls.

After Jean Eleanor was born, the Swans moved into their first house outside Dorothy's hometown, on six acres (in a hamlet so small the traffic light was only on after Sunday church let out), and while working nights at a power plant, Don planted the nursery he'd always wanted. James Brudenell, their last child, was born in the county hospital in Salem, N.J.

As a young mother Mrs. Swan was a popular Girl Scout leader and Sunday School superintendent and teacher. At Easter services, she would sing the "Consider the Lilies" solo in Handel's Messiah at various churches.

In 1959, they would return to Long Island where Don had gone to college, and he began his teaching career as a Tech in charge of the greenhouses, and a lab with a tank of marine plants the students called "Swan Lake."

Don would eventually major in botany at C.W. Post, and Dorothy would earn her masters in library science with a minor in Cartography at Queens College. They'd commute to night school, raise a family, and both work part-time. And it was while tracking down answers for queries sent to the Grolier Society's Book of Knowledge encyclopedia, Dot had so much fun, she knew she'd found the outlet for her talents that suited her lively nature and would contribute significantly in her many public endeavors.

An example of the initiatives she'd surprise her family, friends, and fans with was how, during the five years she taught secretarial science at SUNY Farmingdale, she used the empty corridor over semester break to lay out dozens of Geological Survey maps of Long Island, then cover them in Contac paper to create a 120-foot mural for the campus library that was so detailed people could locate their own houses.

After years teaching biology, Donald retired in 1975 to help his brothers at their Hammonnasset River Marina in Clinton, and the Swans left Long Island for a mobile home in Killingworth. Dorothy would devote five years training Literacy Volunteers in Westbrook and teaching adults to read. After doing clerical temps at Hartford Insurance and Middlesex Hospital, she was the librarian in the Haddam-Killingworth High School's media center.

It was because of those clerical and research skills that she and Donald would work as a volunteer-team in several organizations and on independent projects. She was yearbook chairman and all-around assistant over the decade he was president of the Connecticut Botanical Society and the Herbarium at Yale. They were integral in the Notable Trees of Connecticut project through Conn College, active with the Platt Nature Center in Killingworth, and received a plaque as recognition for contributions to the New England Wildflower Society.

In 1985 the Swans moved into a Saybrook house on the Back River tidal marsh. Dorothy would be Acton's research librarian for several years, and when Donald became president of the Historical Society at the General William Hart House, she served variously as trustee, registrar, membership chairman, docent, docent-trainer, grandfather-clock winder, and she even dressed (wearing a mobcap) as General Hart's wife for "Tea on Esther's Porch."

Dorothy encouraged initiative in her children, and though Susanna lived out-of-state, she'd add little historical society touches, such as making signs (like the one on the archives door) and creating the archives hand-out for tourists. But it was their lifelong attunement that proved a priceless boon when she helped Susanna with the bigger projects: writing the manual for young docents, and mounting four exhibits – most memorably 2008's "Some Other Harts of Saybrook," a marathon effort that they pulled off in six weeks.

The husband and wife team also joined the CT Gravestone Network, and their tile on Acton Library's Wall-of-Tiles acknowledges their mapping and photographing of Cypress Cemetery in Old Saybrook. They were also given a citation by the State for documenting Winthrop Cemetery, and bought a burial site beside the plot of rare wild orchids they looked after.

As they drove away from the cemetery after pulling weeds one August morning in 2002, a head-on collision with a drunk driver took Donald's life, and put Dorothy's four limbs in casts. Her recovery was so remarkable it was written up in a medical newsletter. On the rustic bench she chose for their cemetery site is a modest plaque with the couple's names, dates, and "They tended the orchids."

Though the accident left her with painful injuries, her positive outlook kept her going at the archives – and taking rides on her pink bicycle. And though her sight was failing in her 80s, she still managed to assemble 13 dollhouse kits.

Dorothy is survived by Susanna Swan of Cornish, N.H., Molly Swan-Sheeran of Lopez Island, WA, Jean Waters Lowry of N.Guilford, CT, Jamie Swan of Northport, L.I., his daughters Clementine and Amelia, and Susanna's daughter, Amanda Ruby Lowe of Aurora, IL, and Dorothy's great-grand-daughter Ruby Lowe.

Mrs. Swan didn't want a funeral or any "fuss" after her passing, but a "Celebrating Dorothy" gathering will be held in mid-September, open to all her friends and colleagues, in the garden and Archives of the Old Saybrook Historical Society at the General William Hart House on Main Street. Though she was too weak to talk, when told of the gathering-to-be, she smiled.