Anne Therese (Dolan) Wooten Obituary (1916 - 2014)

Anne Therese (Dolan) Wooten, avid golfer, knitter, piano player, bookkeeper, hospital volunteer, mother, aunt, sister, and daughter went to her Lord on February 27th, 2014, only 20 days after her ninety-eighth birthday, and is currently showing the angels the proper uses of a nine iron and a putter. Born in Portland on February 7, 1916, she was the youngest child of five and the third daughter of Harry A. Dolan and Mary E. (Dougherty) Dolan. She grew up at the family home at 41 William St. and attended Nathan Clifford Elementary, Lincoln Junior High and Sacred Heart School, graduating from St. Joseph's Academy (now Catherine McCauley High School) in the class of 1934. After completing a post-graduate year at Portland High School she entered Portland Junior College (now University of Southern Maine) where, during her non-classroom hours, she took her first job as a bookkeeper for the newly opened municipal golf course at Riverside. Among the few fringe benefits offered there were free golf lessons, a benefit she put to great use later in her life. She attended Boston University to study business, accounting, and advertising then took a job in Philadelphia as a tutor-governess. She moved to McNary, Arizona, to help her sister Katherine and her husband Leverett Kirkpatrick raise their then two sons, also working as a bookkeeper at the lumber mill. She moved back to Portland a couple of years later to help her widowed sister, Mary Dawson, raise her three children, Hugh, Jack, and Rosanna, in the old family home. After World War II ended, she returned to McNary, where she met the love of her life and future husband, F. Paul Wooten, a recent Navy veteran. They married in 1947 and moved further west to San Diego, California, where Paul had a job at the Convair aircraft plant. During the post-war housing shortage they lived for a while with Paul's brother Wayne and his wife Golda Mae, their son Bill, and Paul's mother, Minnie Ellen Wooten. After four short-term rentals the couple purchased a new house on the G.I. Bill in 1953 in east San Diego. The first of their three sons, Timothy, was born in 1948 followed by Robert in 1949 and Lawrence in 1952. Anne's life in California was rich with neighborhood cookouts, block parties, Little League baseball, camping, trips to the beach, and keeping her boys on track. Following the death of Anne's mother, the family packed up clothing, food, a cat named Herkimer, and the odds and ends of household life in August of 1960 and headed to Portland, Maine, to help the surviving Harry A. Dolan cope with the loss of his wife and ostensibly take over the family business at Harry's retirement. Along the way they visited friends and family in northern California, crossed the Death Valley, stopped in Arizona, Paul's native Missouri, and Des Moines.In December of 1964 Paul Wooten died after a heart attack on the job in Sanford, and Anne bravely took up the task of raising three teen-aged boys on her own. She worked as a bookkeeper/accountant for Casco Bank and Trust, Woodward and Gardiner Accounting, Hub Furniture, Rowe Ford, Southworth Machine, and finally E.G. Oleson in Westbrook until her retirement in 1984. A devout Roman Catholic, she involved herself in church activities most of her adult life, teaching catechism to children, organizing neighborhood groups in San Diego to join her in praying the Rosary, being active in the Cheverus Mothers' Club, serving as a member of the Parish Council at Sacred Heart Church, and attending daily mass as long as she was able. In her sixties she became a Eucharistic Minister and delivered Holy Communion to patients at local hospitals. She also worked from her retirement into her nineties as a volunteer at Mercy Hospital, answering questions, directing visitors and patients, and knitting baby blankets and clothes for Mercy's Birthing Center. After retirement she took up golf again and continued to play avidly and always walking the course until the age of 93, when her health began to fail. She traveled extensively, visiting friends in Florida, relatives in Arizona and California. She also journeyed several times to Europe with her niece Rosanna Gagne and her nephew Hugh Dawson, most especially to Ireland, the homeland of her forebears. A lifelong Democrat, she proudly cast her vote in every national, state, and local election including the most recent one in November, 2012. Anne is survived by her three sons, Tim Wooten and his wife, Susan Ransom; Bob Wooten of Portland; and Larry Wooten of Auburn. She is also survived by grandchildren Sarah Wooten of Portland; Amy Roy of Portland, Oregon; Paul, Mary and Keira Wooten; nephews Hugh Dawson of San Francisco, CA.; Jack Dawson and his wife Eileen of Portland; Gerald Kirkpatrick and his wife Tanya of Scottsdale, Arizona; Dick Kirkpatrick and his wife Sheri of Tucson, AZ; John Kirkpatrick of Alabama; and Kevin Kirkpatrick of Auburn, California; John Dolan of Des Moines, Iowa; Tom Dolan of Georgia; nieces Rosanna Gagne, Kathy Dolan, of Maine; and Jeannie Dolan of Iowa. She is also survived by cousins and many grand-nieces and grand-nephews and many, many friends among the living and the departed. Visiting hours will be held from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, March 2nd at Conroy-Tully Crawford South Portland Chapel, 1024 Broadway, South Portland. Prayers will be recited at 9:15 a.m. on Monday, March 3rd, at the South Portland Chapel, followed by a 10:00 a.m. Mass of Christian Burial at St. Pius X Church, 492 Ocean Avenue, Portland Interment will follow in Calvary Cemetery, South Portland. In lieu of flowers, donations in Anne's memory may be made to: Animal Refuge League, PO BOX 336, Westbrook, Maine 04098.Online condolences may be expressed below.