Dorothy Warren

WARREN--Dorothy, 103, author of two books on the dramatic monologist Ruth Draper, photographer, lecturer, World War II veteran and lifelong New Yorker died peacefully January 21st in Manhattan. Miss Warren was a fifth generation New Yorker, the daughter of the late Jeanne Blanche Allien Warren and Charles Clarke Warren. A graduate in 1925 of Miss Spence's School, she became a travel agent with Charles Ashmun, Inc. and in 1931 entered real estate brokerage and management with Potter, Hamilton & Co. and Douglas L. Elliman & Co. In 1942, she was commissioned in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps Officer Candidate Class at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, serving for three and one-half years and attaining the rank of Major. From 1951-1954, in association with the Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor and the New York State Department of Labor, Miss Warren developed a successful pioneer program at the New York House and School of Industry on West 16th Street in the retraining of older women/office workers with secretarial skills. From 1956 until her retirement in 1974, Miss Warren served on the Board of National Missions of the United Presbyterian Church as Director of the Division of Church Building Aid. For thirty years, Miss Warren was active on the Board of Trustees of the Turtle Bay Music School and, at various times, on the Board of Directors of The Spence Alumnae Society. She was active, also, in the preservation of the Decorative Arts Collections which form the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, The Smithsonian Institutions National Musem of Design. Since retirement she has devoted her time to writing and editing "The Letters of Ruth Draper: Self-Portrait of An Actress," published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1979 and "The World of Ruth Draper: A Portrait of An Actress," published by Southern Illinois University Press in 1999 and at the same time, the re-released "The Letters of Ruth Draper." Her third book, "Sacrificio: A Study in Heroism," a biography of Lauro de Bois will be published later this year. Miss Warren was also an artist and photographer. Her work is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museam of Art, The Museum of the City of New York and The New York Historical Society. Miss Warren's maternal greatgrandfather, William Moller, came to this country from Germany early in the 1800s and was a founder of Havemeyer & Moller, which became the American Sugar Refining Company. He was the inventor of early refining machinery. A great-greatgrandfather, Laurent Allien of Bordeaux, a French Naval Officer, settled on a sugar plantation in Santo Domingo, relocating to New York upon the uprising there in 1789. Her paternal forebears came to New England in the early 1600s, Thomas Leffingwell being a founder of Norwich, Connecticut. Miss Warren is survived by her cousins, the Comtesse Guy de Tilly-Blaru of Paris, Melfort Campbell of Chicago, Isabel Allien Dawson of Massachusetts. A memorial service will be held in the Chapel of St. James Episcopal Church, Madison Avenue at 71st Street on a future date. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to The Spence School, Annual Fund, 22 East 91st Street, New York, NY 10128.