Durham, NH – Dorothea Hodgkinson Black Butler, 87, passed away on Friday, October 21, 2022 at Portsmouth Regional Hospital from injuries she sustained in an automobile accident. She was born in Norwich, Connecticut on January 30, 1935, the daughter of the late Fred and Robina (Thomson) Hodgkinson.
Dorothea, or Dot, as she was known, was raised in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and graduated from The Lincoln School in 1952, where she played field hockey and softball. She continued her education at Lasell Junior College in Auburndale, Massachusetts, graduating in 1954; that same year she took her first job at the Atlantic Refining Company. In 1956, Dot married her high school sweetheart, Charles O. Black in a ceremony in Vicenza, Italy, where Charlie was stationed as a Specialist Third Class. After living in Italy for a few years, she and Charlie settled in Rhode Island to raise their family. Family was the most important part of her life. Dot treasured their times together: lake and ski vacations in New Hampshire; PCD lacrosse and soccer games; Christmases with handknit stockings on the mantel and Santa’s sleigh tracks in the yard and Easter egg hunts that continued until the boys were in college; barbeques and Gray’s ice-cream after a day at Briggs Beach. She always said that the years she spent raising her children were her happiest.
An avid gardener, knitter, and baker (especially of chocolate chip cookies when grandchildren visited), Dot had a gift for transforming any house into a home, something that came in handy, given how she and Charlie loved to move: from Cumberland to Lincoln to Cape Cod to Fort Myers to Narragansett to Kingston to The Villages. A devoted walker, she loved exploring all those new neighborhoods on foot, often accompanied by her beloved Havanese, Heidi. Dot was good at making –and keeping—friends wherever she went. After retirement, the Blacks enjoyed traveling: to Holland and Germany, across the Panama Canal, to Alaska and Russia, to Nantucket, but mostly to visit their children and grandchildren. Charlie passed away with Dot by his side in 2012. Several years later, Dot met and married Robert Butler; they lived in The Villages, Florida, until Bob’s death in 2015. Dot was also predeceased by her brother, Fred Hodgkinson, Jr.
Left to cherish Dot’s memory are her sons, Charles Black and his wife, Wendy; Steven Black and his ex-wife, Gigi; and Stanley Black and his wife, Kris. She also leaves her grandchildren, Andy and wife Sarah; Grace and husband Garrett; Chris; Julia and fiancé John; Jennifer; and Will; as well as her great-grandson, Calvin. Dot also loved and was beloved by a broad group of friends.
A memorial service will be held at 10am on Saturday, November 5, 2022 at the Arnold Mills United Methodist Church, 690 Nate Whipple Highway, Cumberland, RI 02864. A reception will be held at 11:30 Providence Marriott Downtown, 1 Orms Street, Providence, RI 02904. In lieu of flowers, please consider a memorial donation to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, https://www.komen.org/.