At the end of a Celebration of Life Service for Virginialee “Dollie” Lynch on Saturday, pianist Jim Fischer kept playing and attendees at First United Methodist Church watched a slideshow.
Whether the photo was of Dollie as a young mother or Dollie nearing her life’s end, posing next to a doctor, her broad smile was the same.
As Fischer started into the showtune “Hello, Dolly,” some members of the choir and audience picked up on his cue and started singing.
Hello Dolly, well hello Dolly,
It’s so nice to have you back where you belong.
You’re looking swell, Dolly, we can tell, Dolly,
You’re still glowing, you’re still crowing, you’re still going strong.
Nobody, except Fischer, seemed to know all the words and the volume went up and down accordingly.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was spontaneous and genuine and made people smile.
And that, speakers at the service said, was Dollie.
Dollie Lynch, who died Oct. 2 of cancer at the age of 84, is survived by her husband, Ed, four children, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
The Lynches are well-known for their philanthropy in Vancouver, and their causes included Fort Vancouver National Trust, Identity Clark County, Columbia Springs Foundation, Construction Education Foundation for Oregon State University, Vancouver Methodist Foundation, Northwest House of Theological Studies, and Southwest Washington Medical Center Foundation.
They gave to the I Have a Dream Foundation and the Boys & Girls Club, among other children’s causes.
They gave $1 million to Southwest Washington Medical Center in 2006 during a $50 million capital funding drive.
Last week, a therapy garden was dedicated in Dollie’s name at the medical center.
Saturday’s service focused less on what the Lynches have given the community in financial terms and more on how Dollie made people feel.
Born Virginialee Frankenberger on May 18, 1926, in a suburb of Los Angeles, she was nicknamed Dollie when she was 2 by her mother, who thought her daughter looked like a doll, said the Rev. David Tinney. Dollie’s mother wanted her daughter to be a star, and took her to “every audition,” Tinney said. The closest Dollie got to stardom was riding in the Hollywood Parade, a year before Shirley Temple.
At age 12 Dollie began playing the piano and organ at her church. She couldn’t read music, but all she had to do was hear the tune and she could pick it up, Tinney said.
“Dollie was not a Valley girl,” he added. She grew up in a canyon and didn’t have indoor plumbing until she was 16.
Her brothers would capture and kill rattlesnakes and chase Dollie around with the carcasses, Tinney said.
She graduated high school a year early and went to college for two years in Colorado before transferring to the University of California at Los Angeles, where she joined a sorority and met Ed Lynch’s sister, Patricia.
Ed Lynch, who was in the military but staying with his parents at the time, came home one night to find his sister and Dollie, asleep on his bed. He slept on a mattress on the floor, but by the next day was captivated by his sister’s friend.
The couple married on Dec. 18, 1947.
For years, people would ask Ed how he met his wife, Tinney said, and Ed would reply, “I met her in bed.”
“And it would drive her crazy,” Tinney said.
Dollie worked as an elementary school teacher for two years before staying home to raise the couple’s children.
Daughter Louanna was born in 1949, followed by Susan in 1951, Carolyn in ’53 and son Michael in ’57.
Ed, who after World War II earned his degree at Stanford University, started working for Kiewit Pacific Co. The family moved 14 times in 12 years as Ed advanced in the company. He would move to the next town and leave Dollie to pack up the kids, sell the house and find a new home.
“Ed said she never ever complained,” Tinney said.
Dollie’s friend Dovy Landerholm said she met Dollie 52 years ago, when the Lynches joined First United Methodist Church.
The church women were putting on a dinner and rummage sale, Landerholm said, and she was worried because she didn’t have a volunteer to work in the nursery.
A beautiful pregnant lady approached and said, “I’m Dollie Lynch. If I can help in any way, I’d like to,” Landerholm recalled.
Ed Lynch retired in 1985 as president of Kiewit Pacific Co.
“Status and wealth meant little to Dollie,” Tinney said.
In many ways, the family was Ed and five children, he said.
He said there would be church services when one of the Lynch daughters would start giggling, and it would become contagious until everyone in the family was giggling except Ed.
“Ed would look down the pew, and the person giggling the hardest would be Dollie,” Tinney said.
Several speakers remarked that while Dollie had many wonderful traits, punctuality was not one of them.
She always would find one more thing to do around the house before rushing out the door.
“We started this service about five minutes late, in honor of Dollie,” Tinney said at the beginning of the service, which drew 825 people.
About half of the crowd had to watch from adjacent rooms, where the service was simulcast.
But while the family was always the last to arrive to church, Tinney said, they were also the last to leave because Dollie had to socialize.
Elson Strahan, president of the Fort Vancouver National Trust, said he doesn’t know how many social functions he has attended where he mingled and made small talk with people, all the while wearing Dollie’s lipstick on his face from her hello kiss.
“By the end of the evening, everyone was sporting that same kiss,” Strahan said. “It was a badge of honor.”
Louanna Eggert was the last speaker, and she finished with a note her mother had written for the occasion.
“You are the very whisper of promise,” she read to the audience. “When I look at you, I hear the laughter of my life.”
The note went on to give more words of comfort.
Her mother’s final piece of advice?
“The journey is everything,” Eggert read. “Love, Dollie.”
Stephanie Rice: 360-735-4508 or stephanie.rice@columbian.com.
