DORIS BEATTY

1926 - 2020

DORIS CORNWELL BEATTY  
Doris Cornwell Beatty, 94, of Alexandria, passed away on April 17, 2020. She was born in Loudoun County, Virginia, in 1926, the daughter of Carroll and Lucy Cornwell and the oldest of three girls. She grew up in Purcellville, Virginia. In 1944, she went to work in Washington, D.C., for the American Red Cross. Her job, which relied on her ability to deal gently and sympathetically with people in distress, was to notify families of loved ones who had been killed in World War II. She spoke of it as a "very sad" job. In 1945, she married Ralph Emerson Beatty Jr. of Pittsburgh, whom she had met in wartime Washington. After the war, they lived in Boston until 1950, when Ralph Beatty received his doctorate in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She typed the doctorate as the deadline neared. While he worked for decades for the Center for Naval Analyses as an adviser to the U.S. Navy, she handled the family's finances, established homes all over the world, and concentrated on their children's education. They lived where the Navy had major operations - Kamakura, Japan, Villefranche in the south of France, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Naples, Italy. Doris had a gift for creating beauty in every aspect of her life. She sewed, decorated, learned flower arranging in Japan, and took up watercolor painting. Her love of reading was a gift she passed on to her family. Her husband died in 2010. She is survived by their three children, Barbara Barnes, Karen Kaumeier, and Ralph Beatty III, all of Alexandria; six grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren, and her sister, Carol Jackson. Memorial service to be held at a later date.