Dorothy Strawn, UW dean
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Unlike many women of her generation, Dorothy Strawn didn't cook, clean or iron. Busy with her responsibilities as dean of women and director of women's programs at the University of Washington, she left household tasks to her husband.
"She was a person who had lots of ideas and lots of energy," said her daughter Claire Floan of Seattle. "Homemaking was not her thing."
Mrs. Strawn died Tuesday (June 19) of cardiac arrest at the Ida Culver House Broadview retirement home in Seattle. She was 85.
As a student at the University of Idaho in Moscow, she attended an international-relations conference in Victoria, B.C. While on a ferry to the conference, she met fellow attendee Loren Strawn. When they got off a return boat three days later, they knew they would be married, he recalled. They wed in 1937.
After Mrs. Strawn had worked as an elementary- and high-school teacher in Idaho, North Dakota and Oregon, the family moved to Seattle. In 1951, Mrs. Strawn began teaching physically disabled students in the Shoreline School District and then became chairwoman of guidance at Shoreline High School in 1955.
While at the high school, she created and developed a college-counseling program and worked at the UW toward her master's degree in education, which she earned in 1959.
"She was what you call a true educator," said Floan. "My grandmother always talked about how, as a small child, my mother would line her dolls up and teach them."
As UW dean of women, to which she was appointed in 1960, Mrs. Strawn directed the behavior, clothing and class schedules of the university's women. When that position was phased out in 1970, she became director of women's programs in the university's division of continuing education.
In that role Mrs. Strawn helped thousands of women go back to school after they had raised families.
"That was really one of her biggest claims to fame," Floan said. "My mother realized that women were living longer ... that you had another 25 years after your children were grown of a good, active life."
After retiring from the UW in 1975, Mrs. Strawn and her husband traveled throughout the United States in a recreational vehicle and made trips abroad. They also spent winters volunteering at the visitors center at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, 100 miles east of San Diego, giving talks about the flora, fauna and animals of the desert.
While living at the Ida Culver House Broadview, Mrs. Strawn participated in Computer Pals, a program that matched elementary-school students with senior citizens through e-mail.
"The fact that she was in her 80s when she learned how to use the computer says a lot about her," said her daughter Evelyn Strawn of Plymouth, Mass. "She was always interested in communicating with individuals."
Besides her husband and daughters, Mrs. Strawn is survived by two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
No formal services are scheduled. The family asks that any donations be made in her name to the Nature Conservancy, 217 Pine St., Suite 1100, Seattle, WA 98101.