Dorothy Mary McDonald

04/16/1926 - 11/28/2025

Dorothy Mary (Mazer) McDonald, 99, passed away peacefully on Friday, November 28, 2025, surrounded by her loving family. Born on April 16, 1926 to Frank and Stephania (Kubinski) Mazer, Dorothy spent her childhood in Cleveland, Ohio.
After graduation, she worked at Cleveland City Hall. In 1947, she married the love of her life, James Harvey McDonald, and the two began their life together in Dayton, Ohio. While James attended the University of Dayton, Dorothy worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. They spent their weekends canoeing, playing golf, and hunting.
They built their first home together in Dayton before moving to Arlington, Virginia. There, they built a family home where Dorothy would remain for most of the rest of her life. Her most cherished accomplishment was being a homemaker, wife and mother raising her two children before returning to the workforce.
A proud and dedicated public servant, Dorothy worked for the Central Intelligence Agency until retiring in 1986. They enjoyed retirement and traveling the world, though they always felt most at home on Cape Cod. They shared a love of skiing, hiking, biking along the C&O Canal, and they enjoyed square and round dancing. Dorothy was a longtime member of the Rock Springs Garden Club.
Dorothy's life was marked by devotion - to her family, her faith, her community, and her country. She was gracious, thoughtful, resilient, and deeply loved. Her legacy lives on not only in the stories she carefully preserved, but in the countless moments of kindness, joy, and steadfast love she shared over nearly a century of life.
Family was the heart of Dorothy's life. She often wrote of how "happy and proud" she and James were of their children, Maureen Sengpiehl and Kevin McDonald, and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She treasured the daily phone calls from her son, which she described as one of the "special times" of her life. Equally meaningful was witnessing her daughter Maureen's return to the Catholic Church.
She is survived by her two children, her nine grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, and all who were blessed to know her.
A celebration of her life will be held in the spring.