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Dorothy Morey

After high school in Minneapolis, Dorothy Morey signed up for the Air Force. "It was the only service that admitted women," she says. "The others had a women's auxiliary." During the Korean War, she served in Japan and met her husband, a native of Salem, Oregon, who enrolled at the UO on their return. "I helped out with a new baby before finals each spring," says the mother of four. "I started UO classes when the third was three weeks old. It took 10 years to graduate." She taught first grade in Cottage Grove for nine years and negociated for teachers when the school budget failed in 1974. "I've always been an advocate," says Morey, who divorced in '75 and entered UO law school in '79. "I'm starting my 26th year as a criminal defense lawyer." Despite bypass surgery two years ago, she is also in her 25th year as a volunteer with Senior Law Services, offering legal assistance in Saturday sessions at senior centers, and in her first year at New Roads School, counseling homeless youth. "My brothers and sisters ask me when I'm going to retire," she notes. "I say, "It does not compute."

happening people

photograph and story by Paul Neevel

Eugene Weekly / 13 March 2008

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