Doris DodgenTillery

  Doris Dodgen Tillery passed away Oct. 3, 2010. Services will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Wesley United Methodist Church with Dr. David Stubblefield officiating. Burial will be in Memoryland Memorial Park.

Visitation is from 6 to 8 p.m. today at Coker-Mathews Funeral Home.

Doris was born Nov. 14, 1929, in Yantis, daughter of C.P. and Lillian Dodgen. She married Charles Tillery on July 23,1950. Doris taught school in Greenville for 34 years and one year in Cameron.

She valued her family the most. Her greatest accomplishment in life was being a part of making them who they are. Family was her heart, but music was her soul. She loved to sing, write and listen to music. She loved to play the piano and sing with the Sweet Sensations, the local chapter of the Sweet Adelines. Doris loved to write anything and everything and wrote children’s stories and poetry. She loved learning. She was valedictorian of her senior class and received a bachelor of music degree from North Texas State University and a master of education degree from East Texas State University. She pursued a Ph.D. in early childhood from 1974-1978. Only a serious heart condition prevented her from becoming Doris Tillery, Ph.D. She spent 35 years as an educator — most of it at her beloved Bowie Elementary School in Greenville.

She loved to travel. She made wonderful memories with her family, traveling through the United States and Europe. She and her husband opened Bowie Elementary in Greenville in 1957. They and each of their children have a tree planted in their honor or their memory at the school. There has been a member of their family attending or teaching at Bowie for 53 years.

She was a member of the Retired Teachers Association, American Association of University Women and MENSA.

Surviving are her daughters, Amy Tillery and Leigh Anne Brown; son-in-law Chuck Brown; a granddaughter, Katelyn Brown; a niece and husband, Lyle and Richard Luna of Tyler; and a nephew and wife, Bobby and Edna Dodgen of Tyler.

Preceding her in death were a son, Tyson, in 1963; her husband in 1995; her parents and a brother, Merrill Dodgen.

Pallbearers will be Charles Robertson, Charles Brown, Jerry Bench, John Overton, Bill Kloepping and Richard Luna. Honorary pallbearers will be Ray Harmon, Jearl Dunavin and Bob Doan.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations be given to purchase library books for the children at Bowie Elementary, 6005 Stonewall Street, Greenville, Texas 75402.