Marilyn J. Doto

Marilyn J. “Lyn” Doto, age 77, died peacefully at home on October 7, 2023, with her husband at her side. Her many friends knew Lyn as a smart, funny, warm, kind, and generous person who had many strongly held beliefs. One of those was that whenever possible, she believed that family members should disclose their loved one’s cause of death in their obituaries to take some of the mystery out of the process, and in the case of medical issues, to let others dealing with similar conditions know that they are not alone.  In that spirit, the reader should know that Lyn valiantly battled idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) for more than two years, and that her final months were further complicated by symptoms related to dementia.

Born and raised in Wilmington, she was the daughter of the late William J. Doto, Sr. and Mary (Escherich) Doto.  Lyn was a graduate of Ursuline Academy, and the University of Delaware, where she majored in English and minored in Psychology. She also earned a Masters Degree in Social Service Management from Bryn Mawr College.

Lyn had a rewarding and distinguished career of direct social work, staff development and training, and public service management and administration.  She got her start right out of college, in 1968, when she joined a team of idealistic and committed fellow social workers in the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services.

She started out working with the elderly, and later worked with families receiving federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). She also provided individual and family counseling to teenagers and their families as a social worker in the Division of Child Protective Services, supervised a unit of social workers in the federal Work Incentive Program (WIN), and counseled fellow employees for over a decade as the State Troubled Employee Program (STEP) representative for the Department of Services to Children, Youth, and their Families (DSCYF).

Lyn’s administrative experience included six years of implementing Department-wide training for all levels of staff at the DSCYF.  She also served as the Department’s Child Placement Coordinator, and later as the Contractual Coordinator for the Division of Child Mental Health. In 1995 she co-chaired the Governor’s Task Force on Workforce Quality and Personnel Reform, and she began a three year stint as the Director of the State Office of Volunteerism, managing five statewide volunteer and community service programs where she supervised 30 dedicated staff members at five locations throughout Delaware, during the administration of Governor Tom Carper.

Lyn celebrated her “first retirement” after 30 years of State service, but she returned to the work world a few years later to do prevention work for the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems. Eventually, Lyn retired a second time, but that one was short lived.  On the recommendation of State Senator Margaret Rose Henry, Lyn was appointed by Governor Ruth Ann Minner to the Delaware Industrial Accident Board, on which she served with distinction for over a decade, before her third and final retirement.

Throughout her life, Lyn pursued a wide range of interests beyond the workplace, including free-lance writing assignments.  She conducted intensive research into the lives and accomplishments of many of the over 3,000 departed souls in Wilmington’s Old Cathedral Cemetery (formerly located near 12th and Jefferson Streets) whose forgotten graves were re-discovered during a construction project in 1998. In 2001, she was named a “McKinstry Scholar” by the Delaware Heritage Commission. She wrote an article, “Uncovering Old Cathedral Cemetery” for the Commission’s quarterly newsletter, which was later reprinted in the national Catholic Cemeteries Magazine.

Lyn kept notebooks of travel experiences, story ideas, and bits of overheard dialogue that made her laugh. In the 1980s, while pursuing her social work career by day, she was a part time staff writer for Fine Times Magazine in the evenings and on weekends, writing reviews of local restaurants and conducting the occasional interview with musicians in the Wilmington music scene.  Her absolute local favorite was the rockabilly band the Shakin’ Flamingos. Lyn’s most prized interview was the one she conducted with noted rhythm and blues, and rock and roll singer, Gary U.S. Bonds, after closing time, but not quite at a “Quarter to Three” (Bonds fans will get this reference) in the dressing room at the Stone Balloon in Newark.

Lyn participated twice in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a national movement that encourages writers (and would-be writers) to crank out a 50,000 word novel in just one month. Always the organizer, Lyn encouraged a group of friends to join her in this mayhem. She wrote a two volume (100,000 word) fictional account about a young woman’s experiences as a social worker in the late 1960s. She loved reading, and at one time juggled her participation in two different monthly book clubs at the same time.

Another of Lyn’s loves was art.  She studied oil painting with the late Edward L. Loper, Sr. for over a decade in his Saturday morning class. She traveled numerous times with Mr. Loper and her fellow students to Quebec City on his weeklong summer “en plein air” painting trips, and helped organize a number of “Loper and His Students” exhibits at various venues during this time.  She also took drawing classes with the late Constance Moore Simon, and painting classes with Eo Omwake, both in the studio and out of doors.

Lyn was deeply committed to local, state, and national politics. As a teenager, she rode around the streets of Wilmington in the back of her mother’s Chevy convertible, part of a noisy, horn-honking caravan, as they celebrated John F. Kennedy’s presidential election. As an adult, following in her mother’s footsteps, Lyn served as an election district committee member for decades. She was the treasurer of the Wilmington Democratic City Committee from 1994 to 2013, and was an active member of the Women’s Democratic Club of Delaware. She served on many political campaigns and organized a number of political fundraisers, friend-raisers, and other events throughout her adult life for a number of candidates and elected officials including: Mayor Jim Baker, City Council Member Richard Pryor, gubernatorial candidate Bill Quillen, Lieutenant Governor S.B. Woo, Governor Ruth Ann Minner, and Lieutenant Governor Bethany Hall-Long, just to name a few.

She was elected as a Bill Clinton delegate to the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and a John Kerry delegate to the 2004 Convention in Boston. She hosted Teresa Heinz Kerry in her home in 2004, to discuss children’s issues with a small group of local child care advocates. In 2008, she organized a phone bank in her home for Hillary Clinton that included former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Michigan U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, and Representative Donna Christian-Christensen of the Virgin Islands among the participants all crammed into her living room, dining room, and kitchen. By November 2020, although at high risk to contract COVID, she broke her self-imposed isolation for an afternoon to decorate her car and drive, horn-honking, through the streets of Wilmington’s riverfront to join in the celebration for the election of her hometown hero, Joe Biden. In a sense, Lyn’s political “career” had come full circle.

Lyn was a feminist.  While in college, she discovered the writings of Betty Friedan, Kate Millet, Germaine Greer and others. She was a lifelong member of the National Organization for Women (NOW), she advocated for the adoption of the (still unratified) Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and she was one of the first volunteers at the Wilmington Rape Crisis Center. Lyn sought no special treatment for women, only the equal treatment that she believed should be guaranteed to all humans.

Community service was in Lyn’s DNA.  As a young social worker, she created and self-funded a volunteer program called Kids Interested in Doing Something (KIDS).  On Saturdays, she donated her free time, and piled groups of her clients’ children into her trusty Datsun B210, and took them to places like the Brandywine Zoo, the Delaware Art Museum, and the movies. Lyn also mentored a “little sister” through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.

In the 1980s, Lyn was a board member of the New Castle County YWCA, chair of its Public Relations Committee, and she organized their annual YWCA 5 Mile road race as a fundraiser.  She was also a board member of Sister Cities of Wilmington for many years, and frequently provided visitors from Kalmar, Sweden, and Watford, England with lodging and warm hospitality, making many new lifelong friends in the process. Lyn also volunteered for a time with the Delaware Association for the Blind, reading and making audio tapes for those with vision problems, and she was a longtime member of the Irish Culture Club of Delaware.

Before moving to their condo near Trolley Square several years ago, Lyn and her husband lived for more than 43 years in Wilmington’s Midtown Brandywine neighborhood. She became one of the neighborhood’s greatest advocates and most zealous protectors of its residential character. In 1977, she was among a small group of neighbors who incorporated the Midtown Brandywine Neighbors Association, which has fostered Midtown’s reputation as a safe, fun, friendly, and inclusive community ever since. She was a board member for decades and served stints as the association’s president and treasurer.  Whether it was a neighborhood clean-up, block party, sidewalk sale, progressive dinner, chili cook-off, book club meeting, zoning hearing, or early morning “cat whisperers” expedition to trap feral cats, Lyn was always involved.

Lyn was a co-founder and treasurer of the Inter-Neighborhood Foundation (INF), the organization that Midtown Brandywine and two neighboring communities formed to conduct joint housing improvements and beautification projects. The INF successfully lobbied the City and their efforts resulted in a 25-year funding stream totaling $6.2 million for neighborhood improvements.

In addition to her parents, Lyn is predeceased by her brothers, William J. Doto, Jr. and Richard J. Doto; her sister, Mary Jean Doto; niece, Jennifer Duncan; and nephew, Michael Doto. Lyn is survived by her loving husband of 46 years, William S. Montgomery; her sisters, Michele J. Fanny Montgomery (Mike), and Lori Doto. She is also survived by her sisters-in-law, Barbara Robinson (Rich), Susan Caldeira (Louie), Elaine Hoffman (Skip); brother-in-law, Thomas Montgomery; nephews, Nicholas Toman (Laura), Russ Duncan, Rob and Andy Robinson, Barry Scott; nieces, Molly Waddell (Jonathan), Kelly and Jessica Caldeira; great niece, Abbey Rhoads; and great nephews, Evan Toman, Gage and Greyson Waddell, Logan Harrington, and Kai Scott.

A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, October 21st, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. in the Christina Ballroom at the Chase Center on the Riverfront, 815 Justison Street, in Wilmington. A brief memorial service will commence promptly at 1:15 p.m. For those unable to attend, the memorial service will be live-streamed at the following link:

https://zoom.us/j/92891776423?pwd=RIFUQ2dmWTJUZDI4MTB0TE5qQkdMQT0

PASSCODE: 361792

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions in Lyn’s memory to The Carter Center, One Copenhill, 453 John Lewis Freedom Parkway NE, Atlanta, GA 30307 (www.cartercenter.org) or to Sojourners’ Place, 2901 Northeast Boulevard, Wilmington, DE 19802 (sojournersplace.org).

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