Remembering Dot

By Donna Andrews

On Friday, December 2, 2011, the birds of the world lost a staunch supporter: Dorothy Langslow Mitchell, known to almost everyone as "Dot."  I sometimes referred to her as my aunt, because it was a lot easier than saying "first cousin once removed."  Or worse, "first cousin once removed on my mother's mother's side." 

When I told Mom the news, she said, a little lugubriously, that she was now the oldest one left of the Langslow cousins. (Yes, Langslow.  I stole my maternal grandmother's last name for my heroine.  I always thought it was a cool name.) Mom was an only child, so her cousins were the closest thing she had to siblings.  When she was growing up, she and most of her Langslow cousins spent a big chunk of the summer on their grandfather's farm. Most of the cousins stayed in the Newport News/Yorktown area and remained close as adults. And while they weren't as strange as Meg's family, combined with the also numerous Hornsby clan on my mother's father's side of the family, they contributed to my feeling of growing up in a place where everyone didn't just know your name, they were probably also related to you.

Dot's passion was birding.  My dad enjoyed birding, but Dot left him in the dust.  She and her husband, Mike, netted and banded birds--she was Virginia's first female bander--and after banding them, they'd take pictures.  She used the pictures to give talks about birds in the local school systems and eventually to publish a book called All About Birds.

Birds crept into every aspect of her life.  Either my brother or I once gave Mom a sweater with hand-painted flowers on it.  She reported that the sweater caught Dot's eye and she came over to inspect it--and then abruptly lost interest when she realized there were no birds lurking among the blossoms.  When her daughters, Carolyn and Lorraine, gave her an answering machine, they recorded a message saying--between giggles--"You have reached the Bird Woman of Newport News!  Please leave a message!" 

For years, she and Mom and the other Langslow cousins would have a cousins' lunch once a month. But alas,  I don't think she and Mom had seen each other since 2004, when Dot's health began to decline and she moved to Staunton to live with her daughter Carolyn and her son-in-law, Allan.

I went down to Staunton not long after that with a few other writers to speak at the library, and Dot was the one who noticed I was coming and had her daughter arrange for us to get together to dinner.  I still recall Allan saying, with a bemused look on his face, that before Dot came to live with them, they'd had maybe one bird feeder, and now they had a dozen. Which, thank goodness, he had come to enjoy.

And at the library, Dot presented me with a copy of All About Birds. I need to organize my books again, because I can't put my hands on it right now, and I'd like to leaf through it again.  As I recall, most of the pictures are beautiful color closeups of birds, held gently in a human hand. The birds, of course, don't look all that thrilled at their chance for a closeup.  In fact, most of them look a little wild-eyed, but then they have no idea that they're being held by someone who loves them and has spent decades of her life fighting for them and their habitat.

If memory serves, the book also contains pictures of unusual places in which birds have nested.  Probably a lot of them taken in her own yard. According to Mom, Dot once spent weeks darting out whenever anyone pulled up in front of her house and shooing all the visitors and deliverymen to the back door so they wouldn't disturb the birds that had nested just above the front door.

The funeral home in Staunton has posted a long memorial piece that tells a lot more information about Dot--including things I never knew. She was, indeed, a remarkable woman.

I originally planned to fill both of my birdfeeders in her honor.  I did fill one, but the squirrels have broken the other, so I'll also be shopping for a replacement very soon. I can't make up to the birds for all Dot would be doing if she were still around, but I can do my little bit.

Comments

[Elaine Viets]

What a delightful aunt, Donna. And you are right to claim her as one. Some relationships transcend the strict codes of genetics.
I am sorry for your loss -- and she's our loss, too.

[Dana]

What a terrific story, Donna--the world is a little poorer for your Aunt's loss. Dot sounds like a path-breaker and a great influence.