Cover photo for Dorcas  Reece Robinson's Obituary
Dorcas  Reece Robinson Profile Photo
1923 Dorcas 2022

Dorcas Reece Robinson

February 14, 1923 — October 17, 2022

Dorcas Reece Robinson, 99, of Evanston, Illinois and formerly of St. Petersburg, Florida, died in her sleep on October 17, 2022. Dorcas was born in Glen Allen, Alabama, the daughter of Henry Grady Reece, a Methodist minister, and Dura Tucker Reece, the strongest-willed Christian woman ever encountered by
all who knew her. With her father moving to a different Alabama church every four years, Dorcas grew up in Glen Allen, Albertville, Double Springs, Waterloo, and Cambridge, near Athens. When she turned 19, Dorcas and her new husband, Tom Meyer, took the train west to Denver, Colorado. During World
War II, the couple moved from Denver to Rapid City, South Dakota and then to Seattle, Washington. There, Dorcas worked for Boeing Aircraft making solenoids for use in fighters and bombers. She reportedly “lived in Seattle for nine months and never saw the sun shine.” After a post-war stint in Great
Falls, Montana, Dorcas moved back to Alabama with her young son, Tommy, and in 1951, graduated from Birmingham Southern University, cum laude, with a degree in Mathematics.

Looking for sunshine and a job, Dorcas moved from Alabama to St. Petersburg, Florida and in 1954, married her husband of 45 years, Robert Bruce Robinson, son of local chief of uniformed police, Clarence “Robbie” Robinson. Dorcas and Bob raised four children – Tom, Bruce, Janice, and Bob. Dorcas did it the old-fashioned way, with very little money and an investment of nearly every spare moment in the kids’ homework, school, and church activities. Meanwhile, over her 30-year teaching career, Dorcas taught math to the good, the bad and the indifferent at Sixteenth Street Junior High, Pinellas Park Junior High, Tyrone Junior High, and Dixie Hollins High School until she retired at the earliest opportunity in 1983.


Though she left Alabama while still a teenager, Dorcas lost neither her fondness for the state nor her leisurely pace of speaking with a deeply Southern accent. After retirement, Dorcas and Bob split their time between St. Pete and their Alabama home on Lookout Mountain near Fort Payne, Alabama – the
same spot Dorcas had visited each year as a child for reunions with grandparents and cousins. While in Alabama, Dorcas attended Tucker’s Chapel in Cherokee County and New Oregon United Methodist Church in Fort Payne. In St. Petersburg, she attended First United Methodist Church and then Clearview
United Methodist Church.


Dorcas was described by her mother as “the most unruly one” of her children and Dorcas outlived them all: Pollyanna Smith; Orvil Young (“O.Y.”) Reece; Dr. John Wesley (“J.W.”) Reece; Janice Weaver; and Ruth Milner. She also was predeceased by her quietly hilarious husband, Robert Bruce Robinson (1999) and two children, Thomas Meyer (1976) and David “Bruce” Robinson (2010).


Dorcas’s irreverent wit and outspoken observations will be fondly missed, remembered, and recounted: by her children, Janice (Walt) Pennington and Robert (Deirdre Jordan) Robinson; her grandchildren, Fiona Robinson, Charles Meyer, Melissa Haas, and Jennifer Horton; her seven great-grandchildren; and
her beloved nieces, nephews, and friends.

A service will be held in Fort Payne, Alabama at a future date.

Arrangements entrusted to Chicagoland Cremation Options of Schiller Park, Illinois.

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