Last week, my husband lost his little sister. Though they didn’t share genes, she called him Brother. Afterall, she lived in the Swartz home for almost four decades, having arrived when she was six years old. She came out of the Lapeer State Home, first known as the Michigan Home for the Feeble-Minded.
At the funeral, the word feeble did not come to mind. Dorell created her own definition of Down syndrome. Not a victim, she saw herself as the maker of her fate, always looking for ways to revamp reality until it corresponded to her dreams of how things should be.
And so she took a developmental education course at a community college. She worked on the hospitality team at Taco Bell, greeting customers and wiping tables. Wanting to be a mother, she adopted a child from Compassion International. And she celebrated her own heritage, decorating her room with Cherokee-style blankets and pillows and wall hangings.
At the first Swartz reunion after our two children were married, Dorell asked my husband to call our family together.
“Got something to tell the new ones,” she said.
As Dorell directed, we sat in chairs facing her.
“You need to know,” she told our new children-in-law, “that I’m the aunt and you’re the niece and nephew. That I am in the generation above you, and you’re below me. And that you should treat me with respect.”
They agreed. And to record the promise, she brought out a paper for them to sign.”
Dorell came to the Swartz home in the early seventies when the Department of Mental Health began downsizing state institutions like the Lapeer State Home, which at its height housed over 4000 residents, making it one of the largest such facilities in the world.
It was Dorell’s fortune to move from this segregated asylum into the Swartz home.
But it was also the fortune of the Swartzes, as anyone could tell by the tributes at her funeral.
And if she had heard what we said, she’d have nodded her head, accepting the truth that she showed us all how to take courage in hand and think big and reach far.
Apple to Apple 
I didn’t know she passed. My heart feels heavy and nostalgic, remembering my early childhood, attending winter Bible school at the church in order to play with Dorell and Lori while the adults sat in the meetings. We used to laugh and laugh together. Years later, when I returned to Flint, Dorell always greeted me with a smile and a hug. I have forgotten a lot of people and events from the past, but I will never forget Dorell.
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My sorrow feels selfish, Phyllis, but this tribute makes me teary. Our family had 35+ years caring for handicapped adults, and unless you really KNOW, you don’t. This past Saturday would have been Gertrude’s 100th birthday, and I remember a soul so pure, that had suffered much, and the memories clanged heavy around the ears of my soul, bringing sudden tears at unexpected times.
Thank you for sharing this. What a special girlie Dorell was, and what a special gift to her family as well as her world! I’m sorry for your loss.
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I loved this, Phyllis. It was MY fortune to be called Aunt by Dorell. Enjoyed the Indian things beside her smiling face.
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My cousin Dorell, now completely with God. Thank you, Phyllis, for this meaningful reflection and tribute.
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