April 28, 2021 at 9:16 p.m.
Dorothy Agnes Swazee
After graduating from Emerson High School in Stevens Point, she earned a biology degree from UW-Stevens Point (UWSP) in 1938. For the next two years she taught history and social studies at Auburndale High School, where she also started that school’s first band.
In 1940, she married Carl Wallis Swazee, and for the first years of her marriage resided in Sherry, then Stevens Point. During World War II, the couple moved to Indianapolis, and after returning to Wisconsin in 1946, settled in Wausau in 1948 where they lived for the next 35 years.
In the 1960s, she returned to teaching with a part-time position in the Wausau school system, then as a specialist in the research laboratory for Superior High School Students at UW-Marathon campus during the 1970s.
While living in Indianapolis, Dorothy joined the Arthur Jordan Conservatory Symphony and later played with the Wausau Symphony for many years. After completing training in the Suzuki method of violin instruction at UWSP in 1974, she founded the Suzuki Program of Talent Education in Wausau and surrounding areas. She served as the program’s lead instructor and director until her retirement. That program is now part of the Wausau Conservatory of Music.
In 1982, Carl and Dorothy moved to their retirement home on the Pike Lake Chain near Lac du Flambeau. After Carl’s death in 1984, Dorothy resumed her teaching career and pioneered the Suzuki method in the Lakeland Wisconsin area.
Dorothy was an avid nature-lover and spent many hours collecting flowers and natural material from the woods, marshes and streams which she fashioned into pressed flower pictures and cards, wreaths, floral arrangements, wall hangings and unique pheasant feather pictures. She participated in many arts and crafts shows throughout Wisconsin and eventually opened a shop adjacent to her home in Lac du Flambeau. After moving to Rothschild in 1998, she continued her artwork and established a shop in her home giving several shows a year.
She was a long-time member of the First Presbyterian Church of Wausau, and after moving to Rothschild, joined the Covenant Community Presbyterian Church.
Dorothy enjoyed gatherings with family and friends, gardening, hiking, reading and sewing.
She is preceded in death by her parents Leslie David Richards and Helen Marguerite Stone, sisters Margaret Crosby (Lloyd), Lois Schmidt (Milton), Patricia Wheeler (William), husband Carl, and daughter Leslie Ann Baer (Luke). She is survived by daughter Lynn Harriet Fochs (Carl) of Woodruff; son Stephen Douglas Swazee Sr. (Mary Rethlake) of Eagan, Minn.; grandchildren Paul Johnson (Angel), Minocqua; Kim Woolf (Brian), Mercer; Jessica Baer, Chicago; Erin Baer (Nicole), Houston; Stephen Swazee Jr. (Leah), Blaine, Minn.; Kathryn Swazee, Minneapolis; and numerous extended family members and friends.
A service in her memory will be held next year post-COVID. In addition, a scholarship in her name has been established which will benefit a talented violin student in financial need at the Wausau Conservatory of Music (WCM). Details and online donations at https://bit.ly/2FAm0As. Donations sent by mail to WCM should note they are for the Dorothy Swazee Memorial Fund.
Mid Wisconsin Cremation Society is assisting family at this time. Online condolences may be expressed at HonorOne.com.
WEATHER SPONSORED BY
250 X 250 AD
250 X 250 AD
E-Editions
250 X 250 AD
Events
250 X 250 AD
Comments:
You must login to comment.