Dorothy Jean Hellar Crandall

is honored with a Large Paver from Clair Crandall

Dorothy Jean Hellar Crandall was born in Wichita on 14 June 1930 and her parents were Dorothy Ruth Raynor and Martin Wesley Hellar, Sr. She attended Hyde Elementary, Robinson Intermediate and East High Schools, graduating as a member of the National Honor Society in 1948. She attended Wichita University one year and was a member of Sorosis Sorority, which is now called Tri Delta. She met her future husband A. Clair Crandall, who was a member of Alpha Gamma Gamma, at a pledge dance. They were married 30 September 1949. They have five children (Del, John, Karen, Joe and Angela) and 13 grandchildren.

When their youngest child was three years old Dorothy attended Bethany College in Lindsborg, taking classes in music and religion. Later, when they moved to Wichita, she attended Wichita State University, earning a bachelor's degree in elementary education and a minor in music and Spanish. She graduated magna cum laude and was initiated in the scholastic honor society of Phi Kappa Phi and the honorary educational society of Kappa Delta Pi. She taught school in Newton for 10 years and was initiated into the honorary teaching society of Delta Kappa Gamma. In 1981, she went to Provo, Utah to attend Brigham Young University and earned her doctorate in elementary instruction and curriculum.

In 1955, she and her husband joined the Mormon Church where she has served in many capacities: church organist, choir director, teacher of primary children and youth, teacher training and adult gospel doctrine classes. She and her husband served a mission for the Church in Dallas for one year, and for six additional years, she served in the Dallas Temple one week every month. She served in the Family History Center (Genealogy Library) for five years, and worked on her home computer doing record name extraction for the Church's Genealogy Library.

She and her husband have opened their home many times to those in need of food and/or shelter. Many of these "guests" stayed as long as one year. One young girl stayed until she graduated from high school and married; another couple stayed until he completed his medical training; and another couple stayed until he completed his college education.

She has a very "nurturing" spirit and when her small daughter was in the hospital with pneumonia she never left her side. She lovingly tended her mother the last year of her life when her mother was bedfast and on oxygen. Years later, when her husband was in the hospital four times in one year, suffering from two heart attacks, a quadruple by-pass surgery and a knee replacement, she remained in the hospital by his side day and night.

Music, church and family have always been her main priorities. She started piano lessons at five years of age, and has given many recitals, accompanied many performers, chorus groups and church choirs. She has been the church organist for over 45 years. She loves the Lord and being in His service, and she loves each member of her family and her posterity dearly. She has always tried to be an honorable "Daughter of God."