Obituary: Stepak, Dorothy
When she was six, Dorothy’s mother gave birth to her brother Paul.
A short time later she developed breast cancer which took her away after a six-year illness.
Dorothy’s grandmother Hannah Bauer raised the two children to adulthood.
A bright student, Dorothy went through the New York School System’s rapid advance system and then on to Hunter College, graduating at 19 in the midst of the Great Depression.
She found a teaching job in Providence, Rhode Island.
Launching into a new life there, she met and married William Stepak shortly after she turned 21.
She worked first as a teacher and then as a microscanner in a Brown University particle physics laboratory.
She also had two children, Ada Lee Stepak and Paul Stepak, and she and Bill raised them in their family home in east-side Providence.
When Bill retired from his high school mathematics department head position, he and Dorothy moved to Santa Barbara, CA, to a lovely house with orange trees and mockingbirds, where they enjoyed many years of gardening-a passion they shared—and an extended circle of friends.
In 1993 they decided to move to Spokane, WA, to be near their son Paul.
Again, they bought a house and transformed it with lilacs, roses, iris, and fruit trees, but William became ill and died in 1997.
Her daughter Ada likewise predeceased her in 2000.
For many years thereafter Dorothy spent her time with Spokane friends, with Paul and his wife Diane, and with women from the sisterhood of Temple Beth Shalom.
In 2007, after Paul and Diane moved to Seattle for work, Dorothy again relocated to that area.
Eventually she moved in with Paul and Diane in 2009, continuing with them until 2014.
After a brief illness in fall 2014, she died on October 6, shortly after her 96th birthday.
Dorothy is survived by her son Paul and daughter-in-law Diane; by sister-in-law Carol Pike Bauer; by grandchildren Shoshanna Osterfeld, Nishan Stepak, Arwen Stepak, Sabra Stepak, Cassia Stepak, and Leaf Grenoble; and by many nieces, nephews and great-grandchildren.
Graveside Service 1PM Monday, October 13, 2014 at Mt.
Nebo Cemetery in Spokane, next to her husband of 56 years.