Dorothy Ellen Unger:

December 12th 1942 – August 1st 2023

Dorothy passed peacefully at home, under a full harvest moon in the West Kootenays, surrounded by her loving family, on her terms.

Dorothy was born and raised in Turner Valley, Alberta, attended nursing college in Calgary,  and spent almost 4 decades in the Peace Country,  many of them as a Unit Clerk at the QEII Hospital in Grande Prairie where she administered the “ears nose and throat” clinic for many years. After retiring early from the hospital, she and her husband Ken bought an acreage and raised free range birds, a few dogs, and a magnificent garden, the fruits of which she shared generously with family and friends. Many of the older folks from the Grovedale area will remember Dorothy as the landfill lady with the sharp tongue, or from her many patrols in the red Nissan as the local weed inspector.

In 2006, Dorothy and Ken traded the farm for a truck and trailer and spent the next three summers as campground managers at the Interlakes site in Kananaskis Country. Here, she found  herself much closer to her Alberta family and to her daughter Marianne, with whom she hiked just about every trail on the map!

Dorothy and Ken moved to the village of Midway in 2009, where she quickly became an integral part of the local community. In between hiking or biking every path in the Kettle Valley with her dogs Buddy and then Magic, Dorothy sorted and shuttled millions of bottles and cans at the recycling center, volunteered at The Parkview Manor, fixed fences and shoveled snow for seniors, and spent endless hours in the community garden with a quirky and kindred group of seniors like herself who will all miss her dearly.

Dorothy leaves behind her son and daughter in law, Steven and Vicki Merrill, her two grandchildren Reid & Marly Merrill, her big sister and best friend Moriah Field, her three brothers, Bill, Ian, and Stuart Rowley, nephews Clint, Will, Jimmy, and Scotty (in heaven), nieces Valerie, Colleen and Kaeden, Nancy and Laura, Randi-Lee, and Sarah and Anna, her daughter in law Brigitte Edwards, Danielle, Jenna, and Troy Blackburn, Janine and Terry, Brett, Wade and Christopher Unger, Valerie Shyiak and her  god-daughter Lauren, and of course her bike-riding and bottle-sorting sidekick from Midway, Jacob Cook.

Dorothy was predeceased by her parents, Margaret and James Rowley in 1978, her husband Ken Unger in 2018, and her daughter Marianne in 2020.

Dorothy was a woman who never wasted a minute; if she wasnt knitting or canning, she was shoveling snow or pulling weeds. She was courageous, curious, incredibly compassionate, and she made an impact on everyone she met.

A Celebration of Life for this amazing woman with an oversized heart will be held at the Midway Community Garden on Friday September 15th, at 11:00 AM.

• Date : 2023-08-01
• Location : Grande Prairie, Alberta

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