Caroline “Jo” Dorr of The Villages Florida died February 15, 2023 at age 85 with her family at her side.
Jo was a pioneer of hospice work in America and former professor of gerontology, thanatology, sociology and ethical issues in health care at Boston University. She was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts on August 5, 1937, to parents Alvin E. and Margaret A (Coldwell) Hugo, the second youngest of six sisters: Ellen, Marion, Ernestine (Tiny), Dorothy (Dot), Jo, and Mary. She attended Ashby High School and continued to attend reunions until 2015. She loved music and credited her sister, Marion, for teaching the rest of them to sing and play piano. Ernestine helped begin Jo’s long love affair with Boston University by securing her a summer job there as a librarian while still in high school. No one was surprised when Jo decided to pursue nursing, as her mother and two older sisters were also nurses. She received a full scholarship to Boston University School of Nursing and moved to the city in 1955. It was there that Jo met her first husband, Richard Sargent Dorr (Dick). They had two children, Bonnie J. Dorr and Sandra H. Dorr.
Jo became a professor of Gerontology at Boston University’s School of Nursing in the 1960’s. She was ambitious and adventurous, unafraid of traveling the world with the goal of helping as many people as she could. In 1970, she went to Peru to aid in the aftermath of the Great Peruvian Earthquake, and shortly after spent time in London learning about hospice care. As a registered nurse, Jo’s mission was to ensure that her elderly patients kept a sense of dignity and autonomy toward the end of their lives. She, along with three other individuals, established the first hospice in Massachusetts in 1975. She went on to develop other programs and taught that a “hospice friend” takes on a role that loved ones may not be able to fulfill. It is helpful for people to turn to an outsider, someone not so close to the situation, to talk to in their final days.
In 1984, Jo began working as a Clinical Nurse Specialist for the Brockton/West Roxbury Veterans Administration, and continued to teach part-time at Boston University. By 1991, her class, “Death and Mourning: Loss, Grief, and Bereavement,” had 187 students in an auditorium. After she got through the term papers, she decided it was time to retire from teaching. “I have very happy memories of all the people that came to BU to learn. They were very responsive if they were treated well, and that made a big difference to me.”
After retiring from teaching, Jo moved from state to state serving as an Associate Chief of Nursing Care at Veterans Administrations in Minneapolis, Nashville, Milwaukee, Clarksburg (WV), and Pittsburgh. She returned to Massachusetts in 2009, when she married Arthur Bianchini II. Jo’s love of music followed her wherever she went and she participated in several church choirs and barbershop quartets over the years.
Jo was an eloquent speaker and never turned down a speaking engagement. She strove to educate about the importance of ethics in healthcare and advocate for change in our thinking about aging and death. “We have to unlearn part of the band-aid approach that many of us learned as we were socialized into our various roles: A feeling that we can make every situation better, that we can patch it up and make the bad things go away,” she said in an interview for
“It’s About Living,” circa 1980. Instead, Jo believed we should lean in and move past our fears, offer compassion, experience the infinite miracles found through caring relationships, and let ourselves grieve.
Jo is survived by her daughters, Bonnie Dorr and her husband Stephen Martin of The Villages, FL and Sandy Dorr and companion Kevin Paige of Danbury, CT, and her son-by-guardianship, Phelan Ferguson of Nassau, Bahamas; her sister Mary Gates and her husband Wallace of Fitchburg, MA; her grandchildren, Carissa Dorson and her husband Shane Spiegel, Ryan Dorson and his wife Kaitie Geck, Sherri Saggiomo and her husband Steven, and Phelanito Ferguson; her great-grandson, Jonas Hutchins; her niece, Jennie Coe; and her nephews, Peter Johnson, Kevin Booth, James Johnson, David Booth, Steven Booth, Steven Gates, and Joshua Gates. She is predeceased by her sisters, Ellen, Marion, Ernestine, and Dorothy, her nephew Jeffrey, her niece Carla, her husband Arthur, and former husband Richard.
A private celebration of her life is postponed until a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations can be given in her honor to: adrccares.org/donate (Alzheimer’s and Dementia Resource Center, 1410 Gene Street, Winter Park, FL 32789) or to hospicecare.com/donate/ (International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care).
