Rebecca Rhue Dooley was perhaps the most gracious woman I have ever met. She was my brother's wife.My brother met her while in college, and around '43 or '44 she came to Dayton to meet his family. She was the youngest of three sisters, all from Indiana.
Brother Bud went in to the service in '43, out of college, and their courtship apparently flourished. In '44, Bud, or Dean, his real name, was getting a weekend leave. He was station in Cuba at the Naval Base, where his submarine, the S-11, was in port. He was going to fly to Miami and meet us. We got down a day or two early, and Becky, wanted to look her best, laid out in the sun, too long. She was red and puffy when he finally got to Miami.
After the war, the got married, and their first job was a coaching job in Monrovia, Indiana, a crossroads town, but a hotbed of basketball. They lived in an old farmhouse they rented from Cotty Dillon. It was heated by an old stove, no plumbing or running water. Rebecca, being the trooper that she was, made a home for them and took it "like a trooper." We went over for a Thanksgiving visit. Dad had made her a, well, an indoor commode, a wooden box with a lid, hole in the top, etc., and a bucket. For those times when you didn't want to make to "walk" outside.
After a few years, they moved to Dayton, brother too a coaching job there. I was away to school, then the Navy, so really saw little of them. Then they moved to Michigan and then to Arizona, so my time with them was limited and rare.
However, during that time, Rebecca was diagnosed with ALS, the Lou Gehrig's Disease as it is called today and the reason for all of the ice water dousings. I was not around her during this part of her life, I only have heard stories about it. It must be a hideous thing to see, the gradual loss of ..... everything.
I forget the year, but Kevin Dooley, her son, was getting married. We attended the wedding. Rebecca, had leg braces attached to her weakened legs .... I am tearing up a bit just recalling that incident .... she was determined to dance with her son at his wedding, and she did ... how difficult for her ... I can only imagine.
ALS took a wonderful lady, a mother and a wife, and a sister in law .... I must admit I am thankful I did not witness that insidious gradual decline of her life ... Rebecca Rhue Dooley .... incidentally, her sister just passed away recently, at nearly 104.
