NEW PALTZ – Dorothy (“Dori”) Shays Dangerfield, 84, of New Paltz, passed away on Friday, Oct. 26, 2012 due to cancer related illness, at the Health Center at Woodland Pond of New Paltz surrounded by her loving children and friends. She was born Dorothy Marilyn Shays in Jamaica Queens on Oct. 9, 1928.
A graduate of Colby Sawyer Junior College, Ms. Dangerfield also received a Masters Degree in Early Childhood education from New York University. She held a series of jobs over the years including as Educational Director of a head start center in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and as a teacher in a variety of settings. She retired as Supervising Case Manager for Putnam County Mental Health in New York State in the mid-1990s.
In word and action, Ms. Dangerfield dedicated her life to promoting peace and social justice. Among her favorite formative experiences was a series of conversations she had as a young adult with Harry Belafonte, while he and his performance group rehearsed in her Greenwich Village apartment. Ms. Dangerfield got her start as an activist in 1958 protesting the atom bomb to make sure there was a world for her children to grow up in. Throughout the 60s and 70s she devoted herself to the anti- war, Civil Rights and anti nuclear movements. She was committed to promoting non-violence and honoring others who had pursued that path, including volunteering for many years as a member of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Committee in Newburgh, a group which organized activities including annual school based programs commemorating the late civil rights leader. She was treasurer of the Beacon Democratic Club and volunteered for several decades as a poll worker.
Ms. Dangerfield was a deeply spiritual individual who tried to find answers to the human condition through readings and practice. Profoundly influenced by the Course in Miracles, she also explored meditation and Buddhist spiritual practices and was a long time member of the Budding Flower Sangha of the Mid-Hudson Valley.
Ms. Dangerfield was predeceased by her parents, Ruth Elliott Shays MacElveen and Robert Thurston Shays, Sr., and her older brother, Robert Thurston Shays, Jr. Divorced in 1965 from husband Kenneth J. Carter, who predeceased her, she was also predeceased by husband, Carl Dangerfield.
She is survived by her sister Adele Ruth Shays Bowler of New York City; her sister-in law Kathryn Walton Shays of Edgewater, N.J.; daughter, Cindy Carter and her spouse, Christopher J. Enscoe, of Earlville; daughter Karen E. Carter and her spouse Elizabeth Ferber of Leeds, Massachusetts; son Stephen E. Carter and his life partner, Michael Hunter of Ambridge, Pennsylvania; grandchildren Adrian Blake Enscoe of Brooklyn, Ariana Ferber-Carter of San Francisco, and Zoe Enscoe of Earlville, as well as many nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews from the Shays and Bowler families.
Memorial services will be held at the Health Center at Woodland Pond, 200 Woodland Pond Circle, New Paltz, NY on Sunday, Nov. 18 at 2 p.m.