Leota Elizabeth Herren was born on Dec. 16, 1922, in Hutchinson, Kan., to Clarence and Nellie Herren. An obituary in The Chaffee County Times said that after graduating from Emporia State University in Kansas, where she majored in English and library sciences, she bought land near Mount Princeton in Nathrop, a village north of Salida. By 1950, with the help of her mother, she had built a cabin there.
In the 1940s and ’50s she worked in the engineering libraries of several aircraft companies. She married George Dooley in 1964, and over the years they owned or managed an assortment of businesses in the Salida area, including, in the late 1970s, Dooley’s Bar. Her husband died in 2009. She has no immediate survivors.
At her death Ms. Dooley was a resident of Columbine Manor Care Center in Salida, and was one of a number of residents there who died amid an outbreak of the new coronavirus.
Ms. Dooley had moved to the care facility because she was having difficulty walking, but her mind was still keen, as fellow members of the ABC Book Club attest. They held their December meeting near the manor just so she could be sure to attend. Who wouldn’t want someone with a library sciences background in their book club?
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