WESTBROOK – Glass Barrier Career Breaker, Korea and Vietnam Veteran, Volunteer, and devoted wife and mother, Mary Dorothy “Dottie” McGuirk, 95, died peacefully May 29, 2024, at a skilled nursing facility for veterans in Scarborough. She was born on Dec. 26, 1928, the daughter of the late Alex Chaisson and Mildred (Doucette) Chaisson. She was educated in French and English by nuns at Saint Hyacinth School in Westbrook and graduated from Westbrook High School in 1947 where she was a member of the Girl’s State Championship Basketball team. She entered the Mercy School of Nursing graduating in 1950. Dottie worked at Mercy and the Veterans Administration Hospital before joining the Air Force in 1954.

Dottie was stationed at Vance Air Force Base Hospital in Oklahoma where she met and married her first husband, Captain Gerald Johnson in 1955. They were transferred to MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida where Gerald was killed in a plane crash caused by excessive wing fatigue and thunderstorm turbulence in April 1958. She proceeded to her first overseas assignment in England two years later. She went on to earn her Flight Nursing and Aerospace Medicine specialties and was assigned as an Air Force Nurse Recruiter for the western United States.

As the Vietnam War escalated in the mid-’60s, Dottie was promoted to Major and transferred to Hawaii as a flight nurse. She and her second husband, Major, Laurence McGuirk were married at the Base Chapel in May 1966 in Hawaii. At the time, she and her husband were a rare couple drawing hazardous duty and combat flight pay. Her husband and adopted son were stationed in the Philippines while Dottie was stationed in Hawaii for the first 9 months of the marriage. The Air Force transferred her to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines to meet the demands of the busiest operating rooms up until February 1968. Dottie’s career ended abruptly in 1968 when she became pregnant and was Honorably Discharged from service after 15 years of exemplary contributions to patient and wounded care. Her youngest son, Kevin, was born in Maine in June 1968 and the family was transferred to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Tragedy struck again at Minot when her husband was killed in a B-52 accident, leaving her a widow for the second time and a single mother to her oldest, adopted son and youngest infant son. This tragedy had a glass barrier breaking consequence: from 1968 to 1971 Dottie wrote countless Senators, Congressman and the Secretary of the Air Force to be reinstated as an Air Force Nurse and complete five additional years of service for her Air Force pension. Air Force Secretary Robert Seamans Jr. agreed, ordered her immediately back to duty, and Captain Loretta Chaisson swore her big sister Dottie back into the Air Force in 1971: setting the career precedent for women to serve in uniform and have a career without sacrificing a family. Dottie became the first mother serving in the American military with two dependent children under 18. She was stationed at Wilford Hall in San Antonio on the wards, before being ordered to the Thai jungle for an isolated year tour. She was the Chief Nurse supporting the 56th Special Operations Wing and Combined Air Operations Center. Her final assignment was at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., as Chief Nurse where she retired in June 1978.

Moving back to Maine, Dottie became active in her Church, teaching Sunday School, organizing Church Christmas Fairs, helping build affordable homes as a volunteer board member on the Westbrook Housing Authority, being active in the the Society of Air Force Nurses, the Military Officers Association, American Legion Posts 62 and 197, Military Order of World Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Travis Mills Foundation, raising her family, and caring for her elderly mother.

Her post-retirement achievements have been recognized locally and internationally. She has a street, “Dottie’s Way,” named for her in one of the Westbrook Senior Citizen’s developments, a Bronze Plaque for fundraising for Post 62 during her tenure as one of the first Maine female American Legion Post Commanders and earning the Mercy School of Nursing Alumni’s “Sister Consuela Award of Excellence” for 67 years of nursing. She was recognized and lauded by multiple generations of male and female veterans throughout the United States and served as an Honor Flight Maine Ambassador presenting a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider at Arlington Cemetery in 2017. His Eminence, Sean Cardinal O’Malley, invested Dottie into the Papal Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem during the Pontificate of Pope Saint John Paul the Great. She attended a Holy Week / Easter Grand pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Rome in 2006. Her final rank of Dame Grand Cross in the Order was bestowed a few years ago as her health began to deteriorate. The Order of the Holy Sepulchre is organized directly under the Papal Household and supports the Latin Christian presence in the Holy Land.

Dottie is predeceased by her parents, her two husbands, her siblings, Mary Edna, Joseph Amédée, Mary Margaret, in-laws Thomas Gieringer Sr., Clifford “Sonny” Beane, and Daniel Hughes, daughter in-law Lynda McGuirk, granddaughter, Margaret Norred, and nephews, Robert Gieringer and David Chaisson. Surviving her are her adopted son Laurence McGuirk III, son Kevin and his wife Charlotte McGuirk, granddaughter Savannah McGuirk, and her great-granddaughters, Mailey, Kyra, and Charis, nieces, nephews, grandnieces and nephews. The family gratefully thanks the staff of the Veterans Administration, and Maine

Veterans home for providing her with world class care, dignity, and compassionate comfort during her final years.

Visiting Hours will be held on Wednesday, June 5 from 4-7 p.m., at Dolby-Blais-Segee Funeral Chapel, 35 Church Street, Westbrook. The solemn Mass of Christian Burial will be held at Saint Anthony of Padua Parish, 268 Brown Street, Westbrook, Thursday June 6 at 10 a.m. Interment will be at St. Hyacinth Cemetery. Lunch will follow at the American Legion Hall, 17 Dunn Street in Westbrook.

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