Dorothy Norvell Andersen was born Dorothy Challacombe Dungan on 9/28/1925 to Ethel Amelia (nee Watts) and Eugene Alvin Dungan in Muscatine, Iowa. Ethel was from England and Eugene was from Iowa. Both were practicing Quakers who met in France after WWI working to heal the wounds of war. She grew up with her three younger siblings Francis Noel (Fran) Daniel Watts (Dan) and Sheila Margaret in Downers Grove, Illinois outside Chicago. During WWII her cousin, Claire, joined them from England
In her teen years she attended Circle Pines summer camp and the Co-op Youth League, both connected to the consumer co-operative movement. From 1943 - 1948 she attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, graduating with a degree in Sociology and a minor in Education. In her senior paper she wrote that there were three major problems in the world: racism, poverty and war. She decided to work on eliminating war and dedicated much of her life to peace and justice work.
In 1948 she married Stevens Thompson Norvell Jr. He was a conscientious objector and two years later they moved to rural British Columbia to avoid him being drafted into the military. Steve worked as a physician and Dorothy ran the office in an isolated community where he was the only doctor. After two years in British Columbia, they moved to Edmonton, Alberta and then to Colchester, England. Dorothy worked as education director at the YWCA, as a social worker and as a Nanny and housekeeper. In England, she attended the Aldermastan March for Disarmament and spent three days interviewing observers about their attitudes toward nuclear disarmament. Dorothy and Steve had two children: Cindy, born 1961 and Theodore, born 1963. In 1961 the family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Dorothy became a director and teacher at a head start type preschool. She was a member of Halifax Friends Meeting and involved in the Amnesty International letter writing campaign to free political prisoners around the world. She was active in Voice of Women. She worked to end apartheid in South Africa and to end nuclear weapons and nuclear power everywhere.
In 1978 she left her first marriage, met and married Alfred Andersen and moved to the west coast of the United States. They lived in Ukiah California, Eugene Oregon and Tucson, Arizona. Everywhere they lived she became involved with Quakers and other likeminded people. They eventually settled at Friends House in Santa Rosa California. She was a regular attender of Women in Black, a silent vigil for peace and mourning the victims of conflict, which occurs worldwide every Friday. She practiced what she called the fairy tale principle. In fairy tales often the third child of a rich and powerful ruler stops to help someone who has been ignored or shunned by others. From this motif she took her philosophy of helping whoever crossed her path. Her son-in-law called her saint Dorothy and meant it. She spent the last years of her life in a care home in McKinleyville California. On February 2nd, 2023 she passed peacefully at the age of 97. She is survived by her children: Theo and Cindy and Al’s children: Janet, Laurie, and Richard and grandchildren: Saskia, Rhiannon, Shannon, Sara, Jenna, Dana and Victor.