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Dorothy C. Tarleton, 97

Dorothy C. Tarleton, 97, of Coeur d’Alene and Hayden, Idaho, passed away on Monday, April 22, 2019, at Wellspring Meadows in Hayden.

William and Margaret Coy raised their daughter, Dorothy, her two sisters, Rosemary and Margaret Mary, and brother, Bill, in the Chicago area in the 1920s and ’30s. After high school, Dorothy was proud to attend and graduate from St. Mary’s School of Nursing in Rochester, Minn., which later became the Mayo Clinic.

At 25, with her RN degree in hand, she enlisted as an Army nurse and served in the Pacific in World War II. She was stationed in the Mariana Islands, on Tinian, at the time the Enola Gay departed with its infamous cargo. Time spent in this capacity was for her a defining time in her life, full of rich experiences and adventures she would talk about for many years.

After returning to the Chicago area, she worked as a private duty nurse, where she met and later married James E. Tarleton Jr., in 1950. Together they raised six children while living in Belmont, Calif.

In 1975 after Jim retired, they moved the family to Hayden Lake, where they spent the rest of their 51 busy years of marriage. They traveled extensively around the world, many times on freighter ships, which they loved.

Dorothy loved to dance, entertain, golf, garden and fish, and was an accomplished artist. She was a volunteer with the Hayden Library, Hospice, NOSDA, and the Kootenai Hospital Volunteer ladies for many years. She translated books into Braille for the blind and was the distinguished veteran and Grand Marshal of the Hayden Veterans Day Parade in 2010.

After Jim passed away in 2001, Dorothy spent her time at Fairwinds and Northstar retirement communities in Coeur d’Alene, and more recently at Wellspring Meadows in Hayden.

Dorothy is survived by her six children, Mary (Dugan) Blechschmidt of Seven Bays, Wash., Anne (Jan) Gulliksen of Montrose, Colo., Jim (Michelle) Tarleton of Tacoma, Wash., Terry Dunn of Spokane, Wash., Caty (Rodrigo) Silveira of Novato, Calif. and Barbara Tarleton of Creswell, Ore., and eight grandchildren.

A Funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, May 16, 2019, at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Coeur d’Alene, 919 E. Indiana Ave., followed by burial at the St. Thomas Cemetery.

English Funeral Chapel has been entrusted by the family to assist in the arrangements. To see Dorothy’s online memorial and to leave a message for the family please visit www.englishfuneralchapel.com