In Memoriam

Dorothy Bollinger McFarlane
Class of '37

Dorothy Bollinger McFarlane, 82, a former kindergarten teacher and assistant director of the Interior Department's Indian Art Gallery, died peacefully in her sleep on Sept. 10, 2009, of chronic obstructive pulmonary at her daughter's home in Hume, Va.

Dorothy joined the Interior Department in 1962 after her friend Stewart Udall became secretary during the Kennedy administration. Udall's wife, Lee, revived an art gallery in the department's headquarters that had been established in 1937 and later was converted to storage. When it reopened, as "Interior's 'Lost' Gallery," as The Washington Post reported, Dorothy was the assistant director, a post she held until 1969.

Starting in 1972, she had a late-life 25-year career as a kindergarten teacher at the Lake Anne Nursery in Reston, VA. She will be especially missed by the many children she inspired, and her pets, Spanky, Marmaduke and Bertie.

Dorothy Bollinger was born in Emmitsburg. After graduating from SJC in 1937, she moved to Washington during World War II. She married in 1950 and moved to Tucson, where she met the Udalls. She returned to the Washington area in 1962.

In 1963, she and her second husband bought Ivy Chimney, an antebellum home and four-acre farm in Dranesville. VA. They raised and showed sheep and tended to flocks of chickens, ducks and geese.

She was a founding member of the women's board of the American Heart Association of the Greater Washington Region. Her marriage to William Halbert Poole ended in divorce. Her second husband, Douglas J. McFarlane, died in 1981.

Survivors include five daughters from her first marriage, Virginia P. Ault of Bethesda, MD, Molly P. Wolfe of Hume, VA, Darcey Poole of Rochester, NY, Hallie P. Moseley of Eugene, OR, and Catherine Poole of Glenmoore, PA; eight grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Burial was in Arlington National Cemetery. The family suggested memorial contributions to the Middleburg Humane Foundation, P.O. Box 1238, Middleburg, VA 20118.

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