Dorotha Severance Yoder, of Lookout Mountain, TN, died Monday, March 28, 2005.
Mrs. Yoder was of an old South Carolina family but grew up in Gastonia, NC. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a major in art. During World War II she worked as an artist-illustrator at an aeronautical research laboratory at Langley Field, VA, a forerunner of the space program.
After attending the New York School of Interior Design, she went into business and met her husband. His job with Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. took them to seven North and South Carolina cities.
During those years, Mrs. Yoder was a full time volunteer in church, civic and social organizations. Women of the Lutheran Church, of which she and Mr. Yoder were members for many years, awarded her two life memberships.
She served on the church council in two congregations and taught children and adults in Sunday school. In Charleston, S.C., she was a tour guide with the Historic Charleston Foundation and in Greenville, S.C., and she became a Landscape Design Consultant through the National Federation of Garden Clubs of which she was a member for many years. There, four of her children’s books were published.
In Charlotte, N.C., she researched and lectured on historic ceramics at the Mint Museum. For St. Mark’s Lutheran Church she designed and graphed kneelers for the altar and was writing its history when she and Mr. Yoder retired to Lookout Mountain in 1990 to be near their family.
She was a beloved member of her family. Her husband of 56 years, Robert Laban Yoder, survives along with their daughter and her husband, Anne Y. and Doyal E. Swafford, and their three sons, Laban, Whit and Jordan. She also is survived by her sisters, Betty Griffin, of Raleigh, N.C., and Anne Severance, of Franklin, TN; her brothers, Murray Severance, of Franklin, and Maurice Griffin, of Raleigh; and seven beloved nieces and nephews. All are members of Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church where memorial services will be 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
The family will receive friends an hour before the service at the church.
Burial will be in the Yoder Family plot in Lincolnton, N.C.
Memorials may be sent to Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church at 313 N. Bragg Ave., 37350, or the Lookout Mountain Beautification Fund, P.O. Box 22, Lookout Mountain, TN 37350.
Arrangements are by Wann Funeral Home.