Lorena B. Dorr

Lorena B. Dorr passed away March 1, 2006. She was born in Bakersfield, CA on October 24, 1915 in her maternal grandmother's house, eldest daughter of Charles and Beulah (Eagan) Daly. She grew up in Bakersfield, graduating from Bakersfield High School and then studied for one year at the Armstrong Business School in Berkeley, CA. She then returned to Bakersfield to help in her father's business, the Daly Plumbing Company. She was an avid ice skater and qualified for the Ice Capades but chose instead to work for, and take lessons at famed stunt pilot Tex Rankin's flying school in Tulare, CA before December 7, 1941. In 1943 she enlisted in the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) program, and graduated from class 43-06 at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. For the next 20 months she flew trainers, transports and bombers, including the B-17, across the US from her base at the Army Airfield at Long Beach, CA. After the WASP program was disbanded in December of 1944, she volunteered with the American Red Cross in Hawaii, where in 1945 she met and married the love of her life, William R. Dorr, Jr., Lt. Col., USMC. He was killed in active duty in 1952 leaving two sons: William C. Dorr (Mary), of Beaverton, OR, and Robert T. Dorr (Cindy), of Tucson, AZ. The family resided for many years in Bakersfield, and Lorena retired from the Kern County Courthouse civil service in 1975, and moved to Tucson, AZ in 1999. She is survived by her sister, Mary Charlyn (Shanna) Knorr, of Cayucos, CA; by her two sons; and five grandchildren, Christopher C. Dorr of Portland, OR, Kimberly Dorr of Boise, ID, Kate Dorr of Beaverton, OR, Kerry Dehghanpisheh of Research Triangle Park, NC, and Robert W. Dorr of Tucson, AZ. In her life, she was a true spitfire, and she will be dearly missed. Arrangemenets by BRING'S BROADWAY CHAPEL, 6910 E. Broadway.