Dorothy (Willis) Rainwater

(Editor's note.  The following was received from Dotty on 8/27/07)
   This will be the first reunion I will miss and I’m really torn and sorry. It will be a wonderful weekend. I really miss the fall color!
   My Irish cousin has invited us to Spain for a month – bought our tickets in March and hoped to still make it to the reunion.
   I married Roger Rainwater – a real “Okie from Muskogee” Oklahoma four years ago. He grew up on a ranch and graduated from the University of Tulsa and is in industrial sales. We are doing fine. I went back to work part time at the VA in Geri-psych.
   I have 2 grandchildren – one a month old, boy and girl. My youngest son, Daren, is a paramedic and his wife a nurse. The others are unmarried – Robert in Seattle, Steven in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and Lee in San Francisco.
   Only mishap – a broken shoulder this past winter. It is much better after continual physical therapy.

1997 recap. Dorothy’s significant other is Michael Florey, an airline pilot. She is staff nurse F/T at Vets Admin Med Center in Bay Pines,Fl. She works at the crisis intervention unit, psychiatric department and is a consultant in neurology. She is a member of the Tampa Bay Sea Kayakers and has published in the Journal of Neuroscience Nursing ( an article on Trigeminal Neuralgia*). She is active with the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, is a support group leader and contact for West Coast Fl for National Trigeminal neuralgia Association.
* Editor's note. Trigeninal Neuralgia is an intensely painful inflammation of the facial area around the trigeminal nerve. It is also called “tic douloureux”.

1982 recap. Dorothy and husband Donald have 4 children, Robert, Daren, Lee, and Steven. Lee is an adopted Hong Kong child and Steven is an adopted Alaskan Eskimo. Dorothy is Head Nurse – Crisis Intervention Unit – Vets Admin Med Center, Northampton, Ma. Donald is in trucking. Dorothy earned a BS in Nursing from Hood College, Frederick, Md, and a RN from Mass Gen Hosp, Boston. She was a volunteer in the US Peace Corp (India) for 2 yrs, and while raising a family served in various nursing positions – medical-surgical, visiting nurse, teaching, administrative in West Springfield, Ma. She has lived in India and Sth Hadley, Ma. An interesting experience was running a trucking company – tractor trailer – coast to coast – in India. She likes gardening, needlepoint, tennis, and biking.