Rosalind Haywood Dooly Tovar passed away Monday, Sept. 14, 2020, in Valley View Care & Rehabilitation Center in Andrews.
Rosalind was born April 8, 1926, to Weyman Isaac Dooly Sr. and Louise Youngblood Dooly in Conasauga, Tenn.
She attended elementary school in Conasauga, high school at Polk County High School in Benton, Tenn., and had been at the University of Tennessee for a year when she joined the Cadet Nurse Corps and went to Baroness Erlanger Hospital School of Nursing in Chattanooga, graduating in 1946.
She married George L. Varnell of Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1947. They divorced in 1951. Rosalind worked as a public health nurse at Chattanooga-Hamilton County Health Department during two of those years.
Rosalind completed a BS degree in Public Health Nursing at Peabody College in Nashville, Tenn., and upon graduation began county-wide work with the Polk County Health Department in Benton, Tenn., for two years.
Rosalind travelled and worked in many places, including hospitals in South Dakota, Tennessee, Alabama, Colorado, West Virginia and Kentucky. She was then a teacher at Baronesss Erlanger Hospital School of Nursing, initiating classes in public health, humanities and skills of communication.
An automobile accident in 1956 interrupted her employment, and she returned to college, earning first a MS in Nursing Education from the University of Alabama and then a MA in public health nursing from the University of Colorado. While in Denver, she met Albert Tovar, who was completing his GI-Bill financed degree in electrical engineering. They married in 1959 and returned to Albert’s home state of California.
Albert became a valued employee of Varian Associates in Palo Alto, Calif., serving as manager of installation for them at complex facilities for their custom linear accelerators, and the varied assignments meant that Rosalind and Albert resided for long periods at places such as Ogden, Utah, Boston, Mass., St. Louis, Mo., and Oak Ridge, Tenn., in the United States and overseas at Rome, Italy.
Rosalind was an especially outgoing person, able to make friends wherever she was. Memories of her are as varied as her interests and stories. She will be deeply missed by her family with many nieces and nephews and the many people whose life she touched, including Rosalind and Albert’s very close friend and neighbor, Gary Hardesty.
Rosalind was preceded in death by her husband, Albert Tovar, a daughter, Mary Gless, her parents, W.I. Dooly and Louise Y. Dooly, sisters, Tupper D. Webster, Marjorie D. Fetzer and Warnie D. Finnell.
She is survived by sisters, Noble D. Clark, Sarah D. Newman, and Nancy D. Turner, and brothers Weyman Dooly Jr. and Philip Dooly.
A joint memorial service for Rosalind and Albert will be held at a later date.
Ivie Funeral Home, Andrews, is in charge of arrangements.
An online guest register is available at www.iviefuneralhome.com.