LOFFER, Lena (Lee)

Vistoso Funeral Home, Oro Valley, Arizona Lee Loffer April 27, 1921 - February 27, 2013 Lena (Lee) Dickinson Loffer, 91, a resident of SaddleBrooke, AZ, from 1994 to 2011 when she moved to Oro Valley, passed away on February 27 following complications from Parkinson’s disease and a kidney tumor. Lee is survived by Robert, her husband of 67 years; two daughters, Shirley Lyn Loffer, of Campbell, CA, and Debra Lee Martin, of Dublin, OH; her son-in-law, Thomas Martin, and her two grandchildren, Robert Martin and Kaitlyn Martin, all of Dublin, OH; her twin brother, Larry Dickinson, and sister-in-law, Betty Dickinson, of Monterey, CA, and sister-in-law, Millie Dickinson, of Mission Viejo, CA.; her nephews Sam Dickinson, Larry Dickinson, Steven Dickinson, Charles Warner, and Neil Warner; and her niece Shirley Dickinson Kanak. She was preceded in death by her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Sherman Dickinson, of Santa Rosa, CA, her older sister, Elizabeth Ann Warner, also of Santa Rosa, and an older brother, Sherman Storm Dickinson, of Rancho Santa Margarita, CA. Lee was born April 27, 1921, in Moscow, Idaho. She earned a B.A. degree from the University of Missouri where she was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority, and an M.S. degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she won a Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship that took her to South America for six months following her marriage in 1945. Early in her career, she was a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun and the San Fernando Valley Times in Southern California. After raising her two daughters, she began a second career as Director of Volunteers and Communications for Hillcrest Hospital in Lyndhurst, OH, for ten years prior to moving to Columbus, Ohio. There she was a staff member of the Ohio Hospital Association as statewide Director of Volunteers and Affiliated Societies for another ten years before retiring in 1987. While living in Lyndhurst, Lee became an instrument-rated pilot. She and her husband, a World War II pilot, flew their Grumman Tiger four-seat aircraft throughout the United States and Canada for the next 20 years. After she moved to SaddleBrooke, Lee’s activities centered on golf as a member of the SaddleBrooke Women’s Golf Association and on volunteering at the two Northwest Medical Centers in Tucson and Oro Valley. She was also active as a charter member of the Catalina Mountain Pocket of Pi Beta Phi.