Julia Dee Dolhay's Obituary
Julia Dee Dolhay died at 12:25 a.m. on January 9, 2020, and with her last breath it became apparent that the world will never be the same. She leaves behind her heartbroken sisters: Linda Dolhay, Bobbi Manuel, and Patty Manuel, her many friends, and the literally countless others she helped in some way throughout her too short life.
Julie, Jude, Jules, Julia was born August 27, 1950 in Kalamazoo, Michigan and she weighed in at a whopping five pounds, one ounce. This prompted our beloved grandfather to compare her to a “five-pound bag of sugar”, something he did frequently as he held her up in front of a mirror and told her how beautiful and sweet she was. Thus began a lifetime of controlled vanity, but come on – just look at that toddler picture. She really was beautiful and sweet.
Julie earned her Associate of Arts degree at Kalamazoo Valley Community College before our parents moved the family to Florida, and she continued to pursue her teaching degree. She was twenty-one years old when she received her BA in Education from the University of Florida…except UF was just as screwed up back then as it is now, and she was forced to attend the University of South Florida for a few terms to finalize her degree. Go Bulls? No, no matter what her diploma says, Julie was a Gator through and through.
Upon graduation, Julie became an elementary school teacher in a tiny town forty miles southwest of Gainesville, a charming little place called Old Town because it was a town and it was old. While without a doubt delightful, it also turned out to be a bit of a culture shock for a shy Michigan girl. While she greatly enjoyed interacting with the children, she refused to dole out punishment by swinging a paddle, and all parties involved quickly decided that “teaching” wasn’t for her. This sudden change eventually led her right into her forty-one-year career with both University Physicians and Shands, where she sooner or later filled nearly every position they had to offer until her retirement on December 14th, 2018.
But enough of the boring background details every obituary has to have. What we want to spend our time talking about is Julie – who she was and why she will be missed. It would embarrass her to be the center of attention while praise was being heaped upon her, but sorry. That’s the price you have to pay when you are such a remarkable human being, and Julie was all of that and much, much more.
Let’s start with her hobbies, what she liked to do. She loved reading, crossword puzzles, word games, listening to literally all kinds of music, playing cards, watching TV and movies, and swimming in our pool – just as soon as she was convinced that every frog, toad, snake, spider, insect, and Creature From the Black Lagoon had been firmly evicted and understood that they were never to come back.
She loved birdwatching, all complete with khaki shorts, a matching shirt with several pockets, knee high socks, hiking boots, a safari hat and no, of course that’s crazy. Julie loved birdwatching from a controlled environment such as our screened in porch with the ceiling fan spinning, a cup of coffee or a can of pop sitting by her side, her rocking chair slowly rocking, and the soft sound of profanity emanating from her mouth because:
“Something’s wrong with these damn binoculars again!”
Yes, Julie’s inability to operate any sort of technological device: binoculars, flashlights, transistor radios, cameras, VCRs, stereo systems, remote controls, cordless phones, DVD players, work computers, home computers, iPads, Kindles, iPhones, etc…is legendary and somewhat baffling considering her great intelligence in almost everything else. Be that as it may, the following comments were commonplace over the years:
“The TV’s all snowy, can you find me a channel?”
“I think I just deleted all of my music; can you get it back?”
“Someone called and left a message, but I can’t figure out how to get it.”
She also enjoyed eating out, especially at the restaurants of her childhood: The Chicken Coop and any of The Root Beer Stands in Portage and Kalamazoo Michigan. There was nothing better than a fried chicken dinner or a hotdog loaded with ketchup, mustard, and onions, and served on a freshly steamed bun. Place a frosty, glass mug of ice cold root beer next to it on the tray, and then hook that tray over the driver’s slightly raised window…Oh yeah, that was more than enough to keep the three of us happy and coming back for regular visits.
As old-fashioned as it sounds, Julie also loved homemaking. She was an amazing cook and baker, and she kept our family traditions alive by following our mom’s recipes. Julie was always impatient when there were things to be done, and several years ago she started too soon and accidentally had our Thanksgiving meal ready to be eaten by noon. We quickly realized that she had led us to a new and brilliant family holiday tradition: Turkey dinner with all the trimmings at 12:00 pm. Why was that brilliant? Because we then had the exact same thing again at 6:00 p.m. and no, we have no idea why the three of us have a weight problem. Anyone want a sandwich before bedtime?
Julie was in charge of making all of the Christmas treats, although we helped, even bravely volunteering to be scalded alive by the just melted over flames, sticky popcorn ball goop. With our bare hands, we smashed the loose popcorn into ball shapes, then painfully and violently hurled the on-fire treats to rest on the waiting sheets of wax paper. While we screamed and swore in agony, Julie efficiently wrapped them up tight, paper crackling while she offering helpful hints like:
“You guys need to make them tighter. Maybe don’t get rid of them so fast and squeeze them harder.”
She started her very own Christmas tradition when she was just eighteen years old, making the most delicious cookies ever made by anyone ever, a little slice of Heaven called: Spritz Cookies. For fifty years she kept those cookies coming, and it was a gigantic part of our pre-Christmas fun to gather around the table and decorate them. We would sit there talking, arguing, laughing, and eventually harassing Julie because she always frosted as many as she could with plain vanilla icing because she thought the white looked: “so delicate and pretty”. Although in retrospect, that seems like a minor flaw when compared to the year Linda inexplicably decorated most of her cookies a deep, dark, depressing blue that nearly sent us all into therapy.
Julie’s homemaking skills also included cleaning, organizing, decorating, and as crazy as this sounds – making beds. She made a bed like nobody’s business and we are not even remotely kidding when we tell you it was one of life’s ultimate pleasures to slide in between the sheets of a bed Julie had just straightened out. Have a hundred people make a bed, we could pick hers out every single time.
She loved for things to be clean, tidy, and organized, and the look of happiness on her face when all of the chores were done, the pantry was well stocked, and the house was shiny and clean, was a sight we never got tired of seeing. Julie somehow managed to turn every apartment and house she lived in into a home: starting with the first apartment at Tanglewood she and Linda moved to in Gainesville after leaving our parents’ home, to the dumpy Ruby Dee apartment they lived in when they picked up their beyond excited twelve year old sister bi-weekly from Largo to spend the weekend with them, to all of the other numerous places she occupied right up to the current home she passed away in. She made them all cozy, fun, and filled with love.
Julie was always a joy to live with – except for six rough months during her Terrible Twos that our family still doesn’t speak of. Our parents – Bob and Erma – absolutely adored her, and she was a wonderful daughter who always appreciated the things our parents provided, the love they filled our childhood homes with, and the fun they always had with us kids. Julie was a lot like both of our parents. She exuded the same warmth Mom did and she was also a deep, philosophical thinker like Dad. Both of our parents paid attention to detail and loved to get things organized, therefore we apologize to any of Julie’s co-workers who may have been harmed whenever she decided to once again re-organize her desk…her cubicle…your cubicle…the office.
Julie cherished the closeness our family has always enjoyed, and as our parents aged, she was right there to help in any way she could. Her love for them was evident in everything she did, and she spent her entire life following the example they set for all of us kids. She made them both incredibly proud.
Our father was a man who always called things the way he saw them, and when Julie was in her early twenties, he unknowingly gave her the best compliment she would ever receive. Although the reason he said such a thing in the first place has been lost over the years, Julie never forgot his exact words. Dad looked at her and said: “You’ve got a heart of gold, Julie. You’ve always had it and you always will.”
Truer words have never been spoken about anyone, and most of you reading this probably already know that. Julie was always willing to help in whatever way she could, be it a sympathetic ear, a warm, beautiful smile, a funny comment to lighten the mood, a gift of money, showing up just in case she was needed, or a witty, sarcastic observation that was somehow absent any of the meanness that usually accompanies that type of humor. How is that even possible? Well, the answer is simple: Julie did not have a mean bone in her body.
Okay, wait a second. She wouldn’t want us to lie to you and we know she wasn’t perfect, no one is. So we’re going to be honest and try to balance things out a little bit by telling you about the two meanest things Julie ever did. Brace yourselves, this could get a little rough.
The first thing involves Linda. They were still young kids, although the incident was so traumatic, Linda blocked out some of the specifics, like exactly how old they were. The most educated guess would put them at about eight and ten, but that’s not really important. What is important is that someone was cruelly and maliciously taking a needle and poking holes in the family’s tube of toothpaste, causing it to leak out onto the user’s hand, making a huge mess. This unsolved crime went on for some time until our parents called all of the kids together to get to the bottom of things.
No one confessed and our parents yelled at everyone, except for Julie, of course. They told the guilty party to knock it off and knock it off right now, and thus ended the toothpaste abuse. It was always assumed that Linda had been the culprit, a charge she frequently denied, but it wasn’t until years later that Julie finally confessed that it had been her, not Linda, who had inexplicably wasted toothpaste, made a mess, and caused a bunch of trouble. But the worst part of it? Julie had thrown Linda under the bus with seemingly no guilty feelings at all. She was a sociopath. A psychopath. Or maybe just an older sister getting away with murder. You decide.
Our second story involves Bobbi, a stubborn kid who hated iced tea with a passion and grew into a stubborn woman who still hates iced tea with a passion. Julie loved it and always claimed it was that zeal that made her worry that her seven-year-old sister was missing out simply because she was being the most obstinate child ever born. So one day while Bobbi was happily sprawled on the couch and reading a “Dark Shadows” novel, Julie rushed into the front room to deliver the exciting news that Mom had just brought home a gallon jug of root beer. She then proceeded to pour her adorable little sister a large glass, and Bobbi trustingly took a big and enthusiastic swig only to discover the glass was not filled with root beer, but instead contained the Devil’s Brew.
The horror lives on to this day, and for fifty-one years that incident was used to make Julie feel bad whenever Bobbi needed to. Hmm…, perhaps this one’s more a story that illustrates Bobbi’s meanness rather than Julie’s.
Aside from those horrendous betrayals, Julie at home was exactly the person everyone knew at work, just times a million kajillion. She was kind, sweet, gentle, generous, smart, funny, caring, witty, and always there whenever we needed her. She loved to laugh, especially at herself, and she could tease and snark with the best of them.
Julie was never cruel, and she held no grudges, even when we thought she should. Instead she chose to believe that people were inherently good and probably just having a bad day or a rough time. Until they came around, she would usually do her best to be as nice to them as she possibly could be, even when it seemed clear to us that they needed to be slapped upside the head.
Whenever Julie got mad, she got over it quickly and when we had arguments, she was always willing to admit she was right and we were wrong. Staying mad was something she just wasn’t good at, and she instead offered forgiveness, chalked it up to hormones, or laughed it off with a warm hug.
Julie was our best friend, and the love and support she gave to us ever since we first appeared in her life had to be seen day in and day out to be believed. She always made us feel special, and she celebrated the good things about us and pretended not to notice the bad ones. There was never a moment in our lives when we doubted her love for us and we loved everything about her – the way she always smelled so good, the way she looked so pretty all the time, the way her smile seemed to make any problem lessen if not outright disappear, the way every fluffy, soft part of her just radiated pure love.
She was definitely soft, but Julie wasn’t weak. She was unbelievably strong whenever the chips were down, and that didn’t change when it was her own life that was at stake. We noticed her first symptom on October 7th, received her diagnosis on November 18th, and then she was gone on January 9th. Her deterioration was fast, devastating, and terrifying, and it was so incredibly painful to witness everything being taken away from her. One basic skill after the other was removed, and yet somehow she still continued to be Julie.
She lost the ability to speak, could no longer move her hands voluntarily, but she kept offering her commentary by raising her left eyebrow at just the right time. Her sense of humor lasted until the very end, and although she hadn’t been able to talk at all for almost a week at that point, she somehow fought through to tell each of us separately and clearly that she loved us before lapsing into unconsciousness the day before she died. Brain cancer tried its best to defeat her, but it didn’t even come close. Not a chance.
A final story to sum up our sister. Like any teenager of the sixties, Julie was a huge Beatles fan. When it became apparent that the end was near, we made a playlist of over one hundred of her favorite Beatles songs and put it on “repeat”. It played all day, and the three of us waited. It became so hard, and were afraid she was hanging on for us. We kept encouraging her to leave and escape from the nightmare prison her body had become, but nothing worked and so we tried humor.
The song: “Julia” came on, and Bobbi told her to go now because how bad ass would that story be? Not many people get to leave this world with their very own soundtrack playing. But no, Julie hung on. Then: “Hey Jude” began playing, and here we go. Our family had called her that nickname well before the song came out, and Julie had been thrilled back in 1968 when it was released on the day before her 18th birthday.
Again Bobbi tried: “Okay, Jude, you’re right. This song is way cooler and is totally yours. If you go now, it’s gotta be the ultimate bad ass story.” But still she didn’t budge, and the three of us suffered on until several songs later when Julie finally decided to leave us. She was gone and it didn’t take long for us to realize what had happened.
You see, Julie didn’t leave during the songs that focused on her. No, Julie left while the song: “All You Need Is Love”, was playing, a song we choose to see as being focused on us, a song that looks outward and sends a message of love. Coincidence? Maybe, but we will never believe that because we know Julie and well, we’ll be telling that bad ass story forever.
A lot of people cared about Julie, and there were so many that she helped in some way. Some we knew about, others we didn’t, but it has been a great help to us as we try to deal with this shocking and devastating loss. It has also been such a blessing that so many people actually saw Julie for exactly who she was. That’s been an enormous comfort to us, and we thank everybody so much for sharing their stories.
Julie’s body is gone and so is that heart of gold, but she will always be with anyone who loved and cared about her. She leaves behind so many perfect memories and also that bright, shining example of what a genuinely good person is all about. We will remain forever and profoundly grateful for the opportunity to share her life and to be loved by her. Despite our grief, we promised her we would carry on without her, but damn. If you knew her at all, you know just how hard it’s going to be to keep that promise.
Julie Dee Dolhay was a beautiful person, and it is an honor to call ourselves her sisters.
Be the tree, Jude.
Julie loved Natalie Merchant and we think this song says it all:
Kind and Generous
You’ve been so kind and generous
I don’t know how you keep on giving
For your kindness I’m in debt to you
For your selflessness, my admiration
For everything you’ve done you know I’m bound
I’m bound to thank you for it
You’ve been so kind and generous
I don’t know how you keep on giving
For your kindness I’m in debt to you
And I never could have come this far without you
For everything you’ve done, you know I’m bound
I’m bound to thank you for it
Oh, I want to thank you for so many gifts you gave
The love, the tenderness, I want to thank you
I want to thank you for your generosity, the love
And the honesty that you gave me
I want to thank you, show my gratitude
My love and my respect for you, I want to thank you
Oh, I want to thank you
Songwriter: Natalie Merchant
Downtown Music Publishing
If you want to donate in Julie’s memory, please consider:
Alachua County BOCC
5620 NW 120th Lane
Gainesville, FL
32653
In the check’s memo line, please be sure to write: Tools for Schools
That ensures they receive your donation for their program. You can also take school supplies directly to them at that same address.
Thank you if you donate, but even if you don’t, thank you for reading until the end.
What’s your fondest memory of Julia?
What’s a lesson you learned from Julia?
Share a story where Julia's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Julia you’ll never forget.
How did Julia make you smile?