Dorothy Quaintance

Dorothy (Dot) Elizabeth Glotfelty Quaintance of Liberty, New York, passed away at home on Sunday,
October 1, 2023, with her family by her side, after a brief illness. She was 84 years old.

The daughter of the late Orval Clayton and Emma Louise Brenneman Glotfelty, she was born on November 13, 1938, in Accident, Maryland.

Dot attended Northern Garrett County High School (1956) and Western Maryland College (McDaniel College). Professionally, she taught school, tended bar, was a corrections officer for the Southern New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility, and coordinated irrigation at the Elephant Butte Irrigation District. After her husband’s passing, she served with the Urban Servant Corps in Denver, Colorado and went on to found the Border Servant Corps in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She moved back east in 1998 and spent many years as a valued teaching assistant in the Niskayuna Central School District. After retiring from NCSD, Dot became a beloved caregiver of many children who affectionately knew her as “Grandma Dot.”

Dot pursued many interests including weaving and textiles. Many friends and families are happy to remember Dot with the beautiful rag rugs she wove for their homes. She was also an excellent baker and was known for her apple dumplings, pies, and cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon roll deliveries on Christmas mornings were always highly anticipated. Dot was an avid storyteller of her adventures and a lover of books, frequenting her local libraries. She was a member of the Peace Lutheran Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico and the Grace Lutheran Church in Schenectady, New York. Dot loved to travel and visited Australia, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, Mexico, and countless places in the United States. Always an educator, in 2011, she and her granddaughter traveled to Tanzania to teach English for three months. At 81 years old, Dot impressed her companions by walking up the steep stone steps to Elephanta Caves in Western India, declining any help offered by those trying to give her a lift. Most recently, in May 2023, Dot was dancing up a storm at her grandniece’s wedding in South Carolina.

Survivors include her children, Jay and Heather Cooper Quaintance and Paul and Allison Wheeler Quaintance; her granddaughters, Hannah Quaintance (Adam Selon) and Kate Quaintance (Peter Godfrey); and her great granddaughter, Edie Francis Godfrey; her grandson, Samuel Quaintance; and one sister, Betty Louise Glotfelty Hummel, her loving and extended Glotfelty family whom she loved dearly, including numerous nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews, 61 cousins, other relatives and many, many close and dear friends. She was predeceased by her husband, Jack Quaintance; her infant daughter, Elizabeth Quaintance and her siblings, Robert Glotfelty, Helen Glotfelty Englar, and Dale Glotfelty. Celebrations of Dot’s life will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Border Servant Corps (​ https://www.borderservantcorps.org/ways-to-support).

Many thanks to Harris Funeral Home, West St. at Buckley, Liberty, NY.