JARS v63n1 - In Memoriam: Dora Kreiss

In Memoriam: Dora Kreiss
Norm Todd, Kay Kreiss, Robert Kreiss

Dora Kreiss was known widely throughout our Society. She was a regular attendee at our meetings and at conventions and conferences. For her many contributions, we awarded her the Bronze Medal. She was a participant in Nancy and Harold Greer's globe trotting tours and made many friends on her travels. She and her husband, Bob, were founding members of the Victoria Rhododendron Society. Her now mature garden is on the richly forested northern shore of Juan de Fuca Strait near French Beach in British Columbia, Canada. The garden is locally very well known and has been visited by many from all over the world. Dora concentrated on species, many of which came from the Rhododendron Species Foundation of which she was a keen supporter.

Dora died in her own home at the age of 95 on 17 November 2008. She had five children and six grand children who survive her.

Travel was a large part of Dora's life. Bob was a hydrologist and his expertise took him all over the world. Sometimes, Bob went to his new business location ahead of Dora and the children, but Dora often preceded Bob when returning to the United States.

Dora was born on 30 August 1913 near Cumberland, Iowa, to farming parents. The skills and confidence she acquired on the farm served her well throughout her entire life. She started and completed her undergraduate studies in sociology at the University of Iowa. Her studies were interrupted by having to work as a schoolteacher during the Great Depression. While working as a waitress, she met Bob who was doing graduate studies at the University of Iowa. They were married in 1938. Bob's work took him many places, including Galveston, Texas, the Panama Canal Zone (including some of the war years in the 1940s), Minneapolis, Omaha, Lincoln, Buenos Aires, Baghdad, and southwestern Iran.

When the family moved to Baghdad, Iraq, Bob went first. A year later, Dora, with five children, ages 3 to 16, followed her husband. En route, Dora and the children spent a month visiting seven European countries. While in Baghdad, Dora worked at the American School as a teacher. She and the three youngest children were among the last women and children to leave Iraq following the 1958 revolution overthrowing King Faisal. Bob stayed on for a few more months. Dora and Bob returned to the Middle East in 1959, this time to Iran.

In both Iraq and Iran, they explored the countries by car and Land Rover. In Iran, they also traveled into remote areas to meet the tribesmen who pursued nomadic lives herding their sheep and camels in seasonal travels between mountains and valleys. After leaving Iran, Dora decided to pursue graduate studies in library science at Eugene, Oregon. From Oregon they moved to Princeton, N.J., where Dora worked at the Woodrow Wilson Library of Princeton University and other libraries. Retirement came in 1973.

The following is how her daughter Kay describes that event:

"The retirement to British Columbia seemed to some of her children to be out of character. Mother and father had come to Vancouver Island on their honeymoon... They returned to explore Vancouver Island. They inquired of Evelyn Packham at her Point No Point teahouse whether there was any property for sale in the vicinity. She told them about the Seaside Drive property... They walked around the closed-up, curtained house, jotted down the realtor's contact information and decided a week later to wire money to purchase the house, which they had never been in."

The property that they bought had been logged off a few years before and had no landscaping. Through their landscaping decision, Dora's and Bob's passion for rhododendrons began. Over many years, they assiduously sought the finest forms of species. These thrived in the moist west coast seaside environment. Now some are 20 feet high. Dora loved to have visitors so she could show them her many plants and she would particularly emphasize the many big-leaf rhododendrons that she had - among them R. praestans , R. hodgsonii , R. macabeanum , R. mallotum , and R. sinofalconeri .

Their traveling days were not over by any means. Bob was not fully "retired" and accepted assignments in Kenya, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and other exotic places and of course Dora went with him. In addition to those foreign travels, Dora rode a wooden dory through the Grand Canyon and trekked the arduous West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island; she traveled with the Greers and attended most rhododendron conventions. At the age of 85, she went on a tour to Antarctica; at 87, she took her grandson David to Saint Petersburg; and three years later went to the Galapagos with three of her children and three grandchildren. Right up to the age of 91, she visited her daughters in Seattle and in Sitka, Alaska. On one occasion, on her drive to the Victoria airport on the way to Sitka, she had an accident in her car (the car was totaled) and was taken to hospital by ambulance. Assuring the emergency staff that her Alaskan daughter was a doctor she checked herself out of the hospital and caught her plane. When nearly 92, she broke both hips within six days and was advised she would always need a walker. As usual her spirit was stronger than the doctors' predictions and she walked with only a cane for several more years.

What a wonderful person Dora was. In manner she was quiet and unassuming, a great listener and a steadfast friend to the many, many people she came to know. All of these friends will miss her greatly but are thankful for having had their lives enriched by knowing Dora Kreiss.