Lenore Carole Dollinger Obituary

Lenore Levy Dollinger was born in Norwich, CT in 1938 and went to East Hartford High School. She excelled in every athletic sport known to the school, and ranked scholastically very high in her class. She chose Nursing as her life profession, and her high school teachers convinced her to attend UConn instead of a hospital nursing school. She chose Yale/New Haven Hospital for her clinical training, rather than hospitals in Hartford or New York City. She met a Yale Medical Student from California, Malin Dollinger, they soon fell in love, and were married in Hartford a week before his medical school graduation in 1960.

She finished her Bachelor's degree in nursing in Connecticut, and her husband was in training in Internal Medicine at UCLA Hospital. They saw each other frequently, despite the usual training isolation, since she was employed in the Radiology Department as a surgical assistant, and he looked at x-ray files very frequently. They then moved to San Francisco for more training, until her husband entered military service. They moved to Oceanside CA, where she became a school nurse, after obtaining a Public Health Certificate in School Nursing, and he was a Naval Medical Officer attached to the Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, her husband was a part of the task force that was sent to invade Cuba, if President Kennedy was unable to have Russia remove the ICBMs there. They were separated for three months, and they exchanged love letters every day. Her cousin Maxine came from Baltimore to California to be with her.

They returned to San Francisco to finish training and then spent almost four years in NYC, for cancer medicine training and practice. She again had several years with her two sisters, Sheila and Jackie, and her parents, all in Connecticut. During this time, they had four children, two boys and two girls, all six years old or younger. Then back to California, where she obtained a Master's equivalent at UCLA and a Ph.D. at Ryokon College, and was in private practice as a health consultant, also appearing on the "24 hours" TV show.

She enjoyed many close friends' gatherings, saw the world via 25 cruises, and traveled around the country for business and pleasure experiences. Her greatest achievement, aside from her childrens' many close and valued friendships, was her teaching all of us the value of family, and especially her own cherished family. One son, Jeffrey, is a litigation attorney, one, Marc, has a University Chair in Jewish Studies and Social Responsibility, one daughter, Deborah, handles finances for the Los Angeles Court System, and the other daughter, Cynthia, is a Psychiatric Social Worker, who counsels middle-school children in the Los Angeles County School System. Lenore has nine grandchildren, eight girls, Michelle, Madeleine, Rebecca (Rivi), Shayna, Samantha, Mekaila, Alissa, Sarah, and one boy, Matthew, and two great-grandchildren, Adam and Benjamin. We express our tremendous gratitude to her caregivers, these past several years, "MO"(Simonette), Lorena, Clara, and Eftim, who became like "family members," and to her splendid, caring primary physician, Nicole Lawrence, M.D. Peace and comfort was the goal of Salus Hospice. Very supportive was the devotion of "Sparky," a dog she adopted ten years ago. When the gate opened, Sparky ran into our area and jumped on Lenore's lap. He is small in stature and large in devotion, who slept by her for years, while she recently battled an old troublesome infection, and finally, just before her passing, spent hours with her, then lying against her in her hospital bed at home.

We are so grateful and joyful at the opportunity to have shared Lenore's incredible and giving life, and for her teaching all of us the true meaning and expression of "family love." She was loved by all of us, beyond the power of words to express. Her husband, Malin, loved her according to translation of the French, "Much more than yesterday, much less than tomorrow."