Dorothy "Dot" Thrush

Dorothy (Dot) Thrush passed away on November 8, 2025 at the Health Center at

Westminster Suncoast.

While born in Tampa, Dorothy moved to St. Petersburg with her mother and sister ata very early age. Growing up in St. Petersburg, Dorothy attended local grammar andsecondary schools prior to attending and graduating from St. Petersburg High Schooland St. Petersburg Junior College.

Dorothy was raised in a very happy, busy, close knit family with her mother Thelma,her stepfather Joe, and her sister Margaret. During their childhood years Dorothy andMargaret often spent summer days and after school hours with Thelma and Joehelping to staff Joe's Radio and TV store. Doing so helped to keep the family closeand gave the sisters time together to extensively plan the many game and theme-related parties they often held at their family's home for their friends from church

.

Throughout her youth and high school years Dorothy was a very active member ofFirst Methodist Church where she sang in the choir and was involved in planning andattending a great many of the church-related social activities and charitable events.

Following high school Dot became a member of First Avenue Methodist Church. It wasthere that she met and married her lifelong partner and soulmate, Robert (Bob)Thrush. In the following years they had two daughters, Linda and Roberta.

Dot and Bob had been happily married for 67 years when Bob passed away in 2016.

While raising their two daughters, Dot was a very dedicated, devoted and dynamichands-on parent. She was an active participant in the local PTA where she heldseveral board positions and was a co-creator of the singing phenomenon, the MtVernon-aires. In addition she supported the school's Girl Scout troop, serving as theircookie-chairperson each year and providing a house and an outdoor yard for many ofthe troop's get-togethers and overnight camping events. She also spent a great dealof time driving her daughters (and often their friends) to school field-day events,music lessons, swimming practice, roller skating rinks and other activities.

Concurrent with those activities, Dot was also in charge of planning, preparing, andorganizing all the family outings and vacations that her husband, Bob, envisioned.From time to time his ideas involved some rather extensive bicycle travel which Dotreadily took in stride. On many occasions family adventures were relatively spur ofthe moment trips to nearby Florida locales so, unless it was a major event involvingairline travel, Dot was famous for packing each person's clothes into individuallylabelled Publix shopping bags which could then be expeditiously tossed into the car.

All during those years, Dot and Bob were instrumental in formulating and fosteringthe growth of Leete Fellowship, a class that Christ Methodist Church had created fornewlywed couples. In that capacity Dot was the primary organizing force and socialactivity planner. Especially during the early formative years, it was Dot's creativevision that imagined most of the class's monthly social events, designed and createdthe invitations, and fashioned all of the colorful, theme-related decor.

During that entire period the Thrushes' home was the setting for a near-constantstream of social events and activities attended by family members and friends,teachers, neighborhood children, and many members of Christ Methodist Church.

In 1968 Dot's husband, Bob, had the idea to build St. Petersburg's first privatelyowned dormitory to provide housing for the young men enrolled as freshmen andsophomores in St. Petersburg Junior College. Beginning that year both Dot and Bobfocused almost all their time and attention on planning and building the College Inn.

The majority of the 184 students who shared rooms at the College Inn over a span of3 2 years were Floridians, however a number of them were from other states andsome were even international residents from Kuwait, San Salvador, Puerto Rico,Nicaragua and Thailand. As the owners and operators of the C.I., Bob and Dot (Mr.and Mrs. 'T') were 'hands on' managers who assumed the responsibility for residentsupervision while also maintaining the physical premises. The C.I. venture turned outto be a very unique, interesting and all consuming family business.

After the C.I. was sold, while Bob operated the Audio-Visual Department at USF's StPetersburg/Bayboro campus, Dot began working at the bookstore on that very samecampus. Initially hired as an assistant to the then-serving bookstore manager, Dotlearned of all of the many challenging, behind-the-scenes job responsibilities andrecord-keeping activities involved in running a campus bookstore. As a result, Dotwas later promoted to serve as the manager of the bookstore when the previousmanager retired.

For many years Dot and Bob had been active members of Christ United MethodistChurch (formerly First Avenue Methodist). Later on during their retirement years,they became active in Trinity United Church of Christ, their neighborhood church.

At Trinity UCC, together they served as the Sunday morning hosts of The CourtYardCoffee Cart with Dot being the greeter and Bob working tirelessly behind the scenesto steadily replenish the supply of coffee and snacks as needed. During this periodthey made many new friends and thoroughly enjoyed the company of a wonderfullyinclusive congregation.

During the many years Dot and Bob participated in church activities and worked atthe Bayboro campus of USF, they met and formed close friendships with numerouskind. diligent, friendly, caring, and wonderfully committed people, each of whom theycherished.

Once they retired from their jobs at USF, Dot became interested in genealogy. As aresult, for a number of years Dot and Bob spent many happy hours visiting most allthe library branches in the county. While Bob spent his time reading and selectingmovie video cassettes for them to watch at home, Dot was able to use the library'scomputers and the many genealogical websites that the library had access to, toresearch the genealogical history of our family and, upon their request, to help lookinto the family histories of a number of close friends as well.

During all those years Dot continued to play a key role in the planning and organizingof family vacations and always had a hand in making the necessary arrangements forthe family to attend a variety of cultural events to include the theatre, festivals, artshows and musical performances, all of which were shared with her grandchildren.

Dot's friendly, outgoing personality, spontaneous humor, abundant creativity andtireless enthusiasm will be greatly missed but never forgotten by those who knew andloved her. During her lifetime, Dot touched a great many lives and those whose pathsshe crossed will have memories of sharing lots of cheerful laughter with a fun,diligent, kind, creative, positive, optimistic, generous, caring and helpful friend.

An enduring example and cherished reminder of Dot's wonderful sense of fun is thefond family memory of her participation as the one and only accordion player selectedto join Jocular Jack's Mediocre Marching Music Makers and Semi-Boogie Woogie Band.Jocular Jack's Band was an extremely popular, barely rehearsed ensemble of funloving amateurs who performed on an array of often zany, home made, parade-inappropriate instruments in the otherwise prestigious Festival of States Parade.

Dot Thrush is survived by her daughters, Linda Thrush and Roberta Ogdie (David);granddaughters, Laura Mosall (Brad), Sarah Ogdie Howell (John); great grandsons,Tyler Mosall, Alex Mosall, and Blake Mosall, all of St. Petersburg.

In lieu of flowers the family prefers donations be made by clicking on the following link to St. Petersburg's Suncoast Hospice.