Dorothy G. Coil

Dorothy Coil, 97, died January 23, 2023 in South Bend, Indiana. She was born in Buckland, Ohio on July 17, 1925 to Asa H. and Pansy (Roney) Coil.

Dorothy devoted her professional career to helping others learn. After graduating high school in Lima, Ohio, she started working at the Lima Public Library. The librarians there spotted her talents and steadily promoted her. She used her experiences at the library as motivation to further her own education. Dorothy earned a bachelor’s degree in History from Ohio Northern University in Ada and then completed a master’s degree in Library Science from Indiana University in Bloomington.

Her hard work benefitted the communities she served. Eventually she was responsible for ordering all the books and periodicals for the Lima library system. In 1973, she joined the University of Notre Dame in South Bend. For over two decades, Dorothy was the lead biology and medicine librarian, supervising the collection and staff. She retired with the faculty rank of Associate Librarian. Throughout her service, she helped countless library patrons pursue their curiosity and advance their studies.

She enjoyed sports, especially the Chicago Bears and the Chicago White Sox, and traveling, which took her across the United States and to Greece. Dorothy occasionally journaled, writing short messages that illustrated her pragmatic, steady, humble approach to life. In sometimes terse, sometimes poetic passages, she meant to lift up her spirits or refill empty reserves of fortitude. Her extant journal entries leave a record of a quietly spiritual person privately meeting the hard realities of the world with perseverance and grace.

Dorothy is survived by several generations of nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her brothers and sisters-in-law, Neal Asa (Marie Ann) Coil and Wayne E (Lenore) Coil.

The Coil family would like to extend their appreciation to the medical professionals at South Bend’s Memorial Hospital for their care and kindness.

Graveside services will be held at 11:00 a.m. Wednesday, February 1, 2023 at Memorial Park Cemetery, 3000 Harding Hwy, Lima, OH  45804.

Kaniewski Funeral Home, South Bend, IN is handling arrangements.  To send online condolences, please visit www.kaniewski.com.

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