Dorothy Blosser Whitehead

Dorothy Blosser Whitehead passed away Friday, January 16th in Milwaukie, Oregon. She was 93.

Born August 2, 1921 in Berkeley, California, Dorothy was one of two surviving children of Roy and Sadie Milliken Blosser. Growing up in a hand-made house her family built on Chabot Road; she attended local grade schools and graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Elementary Education and Psychology. Dorothy would often say she really majored in Bridge. After University she worked as an X-Ray technician.

Born into a musical family, Dorothy loved singing. She had the gift of perfect pitch and instantly knew when the choir was off key. She would continue singing, albeit uncomfortably, while fighting the urge to tell them to start over properly.

Athletic and an outdoor person, Dorothy roller-skated across the Golden Gate Bridge when it first opened and made her last downhill ski run at 80. Her parents would take Dorothy and her brother up to her uncles' ranch in Willits, CA. where, at times, she would be given the deer carcass to carry on her horse. She was never too keen on that. The deer would attract a lot of flies on the way back to camp, but she was assured by her brother that this was indeed a high honor. She loved camping, white water river trips and the yearly rendezvous with her and her brother's family at the end of some dusty gravel road. Her only gripe was that she would rather not get out of her sleeping bag 'til the sun shone on the canvas of the tent trailer. (Not always an easy thing to get while camping in the Northwest.) She was a member of the Sierra Club since 1938.  She was equally comfortable sipping coffee next to a struggling fire in the rain forests of Washington to dining next to Burt Lancaster at a Reed College dinner. Her travels in life took her sailing on the fjords of Norway to the Arctic Ocean and walking on the ice of Antarctica. She travelled to the mountains of Tibet and loved the ancient shores of the Mediterranean.

In 1946 she married Carleton Whitehead, then a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, and moved to Los Angeles where they had their first child. In 1952 Carleton was offered a position in administration at Reed College, so they pulled up stakes and, while quite pregnant with their second daughter, moved to Portland. A few years later, a son was born.

In 1959 a fellow member of the Reed community introduced Dorothy to the field of tutoring people with dyslexia. This ignited a passion in Dorothy that would leave an indelible mark on the world. Beginning with private, one-on-one tutoring, Dorothy went on to get her teaching credentials and a M.S. in Special Education from Portland State University. Along with being the Learning Disabilities Specialist at the Barnes School in Beaverton, she taught at Portland State University and Lewis and Clark College. She sat on the board of the Orton Dyslexia Society (currently known as the International Dyslexia Association), was instrumental in forming the Oregon branch of the Association for Children with Learning Disabilities and belonged to the Council for Exceptional Children and the International Reading Association's Division of Children with Learning Disabilities.

Dorothy was a quiet yet persistent force in the field of dyslexia for over 50 years. She was adamant about what worked and continued to fight the reoccurring battles over what didn't. In 1966 Dorothy began the tutoring group Language Skills Therapy. In addition, Dorothy was a founder of the Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators, a select national group that established high standards for professional certification of tutors/instructors.  She was very active as a presenter at conferences and reviewing applications for individuals and training programs.

Dorothy began The Blosser Center for Dyslexia Resources to continue her training program using the Academy standards and curriculum. She became a sought after expert in the training of tutors and teaching methods. She authored the tutor's manual "Unlocking the Power of Print" which is used around the world aiding tutors teaching people with dyslexia to read. A lobby at the Oregon Health and Science University is named for her and her name stands on a plaque in the Sylvia Richardson Hall of the International Dyslexia Association headquarters in Maryland. In 1991, the IDA presented to Dorothy the Samuel T. Orton award, their highest honor.

On the Samuel T. Orton Award these are the words that summarize Dorothy's professional life, "She has salvaged the hopes of countless children; she has encouraged their parents; she has educated their teachers; she has modeled exemplary teaching to their tutors."

Dorothy is survived by her daughters, Cynthia Whitehead and Lisa Peacock; son, Eric Whitehead; and grandchildren, Laurel Peacock and Colin Peacock.