George Dolan

George Meredith Dolan, beloved husband of 42 years and best friend of Letitia Estridge Dolan, passed away in his sleep at their home at Plantation Village in Wilmington, NC on March 29, 2023. Cared for by Letitia, his loving daughters Natalie Elizabeth Dolan Ferguson (Curte), Anna Dupuy Hanes Weiss, Julie Meredith Dolan (William Robinson), and Sally Parrish Hanes Hubbell (David), he is also survived by his adoring grandchildren: Lena Maria Weiss, Andrew Harrison Hubbell, Johann Samuel Weiss, Emil Montgomery Weiss, Carl Hanes Hubbell, Maxwell George Hubbell, Thomas Norton Dolan Robinson, Christopher Dryden Ferguson, and Noah Kenneth George Ferguson, his nieces and their families from his sister Anne, and the many family members he gained upon marrying Letitia.

The family is very grateful for the care George received from the Lower Cape Fear LifeCare team and Plantation Village Home Care. Diagnosed in January with metastatic liver cancer, the quick progression of his disease meant that we too rapidly lost a man many called a good person, a dear friend, a valued colleague, a dependable board and group member, and a helping hand.

George was born November 22, 1939, in Philadelphia, PA to Ada Meredith and Thomas Dolan, their second child after Anne Shields (Lee). After his father suffered a heart attack and passed away when George was 22 months old, he was also raised by his Aunties Marion Barr and Margaret Meredith, and his Aunt Alice and Uncle George Newton.

As a young boy, George made getting into and out of scrapes a specialty: eating as many huckleberries as went into his pail when out picking with cousins for his grandmother around his parent's coal country hometown of Ashland, PA; wearing a track in the carpet with his toy trains; coloring the family laundry with a green cloud from his chemistry set; eating so many seckel pears on an outing that he made himself sick; and running about so much at a summer fair that he couldn't move the next day and horrified his family who thought he'd contracted polio.

From 7th grade, until he graduated in 1957, George attended the William Penn Charter School, the oldest Quaker school in the world, as a day student through a scholarship from his mother's work with the American Friends Service Committee. The education and life lessons he learned there would shape his worldview and a strong sense of service. At Penn Charter, he honed his love of the sciences and ability with math and first developed his organizational skills by restarting the school science club with his lifelong friends Bob Emerson and Luke Potts. George also volunteered to organize lighting and other technical functions for the drama club, taking on the role of sound and lighting guy that would weave through his activities for the rest of his life.

As a Boy Scout attaining Eagle rank, George enjoyed many trips around Pennsylvania and the Northeast, including to Gettysburg where his troop found civil war artifacts. Whether with his troop or friends Bob and Luke, being outdoors and near trains were highlights. From a young age, George had a fascination with trains and early on wanted to be an engineer. He knew the Reading Railroad lines intimately and would organize trips to camp near tracks that had a steep incline. He would then convince the coal train engineers to let him and his friends ride in the cab and assist the trains up the hill.

Summer jobs saw George working for the local electric utility, and when he attended Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, he graduated in 1961 not as a train engineer, but with an Electrical Engineering degree. At Lehigh, among other activities, George was part of the Gryphon Society (resident hall assistants), worked in the dining hall, and was part of the WLRN AM radio station, building a soundboard his daughter Julie later used as a WLVR FM student DJ. George's school friend Bob also attended Lehigh, was his freshman roommate, and participated in the same activities. He remembers pulling radio cable with George in the middle of the night when the underground tunnels weren't as hot, and that he met his wife through a dating channel George established with nearby Muhlenberg College. They also continued their weekend trips along train tracks, only now they recorded the sounds of the massive steam engines Reading Railroad ran into coal country as Iron Horse Rambles.

George was hired from Lehigh by IBM (at the top of their entering recent graduates that year) and moved to Endicott, NY, where he met his first wife, Priscilla "Penny" Buckley in short order. Married in 1962, they quickly became a family, adding daughters Natalie in 1963 and Julie in 1967.

In his early years with IBM, George worked on the giant mainframe computers that used punch cards and took up whole rooms; he won accolades and awards, and in 1969 took his young family on a special assignment to Germany. There they traveled throughout Europe, particularly Germany, Austria, Italy, southern France, and Spain. The availability of advanced European model trains piqued his interest and he started his Maerklin M-guage train collection.

George and Penny’s marriage ended in the early ‘70s, but his travels with IBM were just beginning. Through that decade and into the 1980s George traveled often to Sweden, Finland, and Japan for work, bringing back Scandinavian housewares and interest in their style. He also started folk dancing at the Roberson Center in Binghamton, NY, and eventually joined their demonstration group dancing at festivals and sharing leadership roles with fellow IBMers in the group. Here his extensive international folk music collection began. He took his daughters camping throughout New England and to folk festivals such as Fox Hollow Festival of Traditional Music and Arts. He met up with Bob and Luke in Philly, and on occasion, the families would ‘chase trains’ when a famed steam locomotive was scheduled to run. George also traveled with his folk dance friends to Dalmatia, Croatia, and other parts of the now-former Yugoslavia.

In 1979 George moved with a large group of IBMers to Charlotte, NC, thereby affording his daughters the opportunity to visit all the battlefields between the Southern Tier of New York state and Charlotte. In Charlotte, George worked on security software (encryption) and hardware for major data processing functions in banking and airlines. He continued traveling for work, now often including Korea, and occasionally India.

In Charlotte, George met Letitia and her daughters Anna and Sally, and George and Letitia wed in December of 1981. Once they got over the novelty of having a Yankee in the family, Letitia’s extended family grew to love and appreciate George deeply.

Many of George’s folk dance friends had also made the move to the Charlotte area, and they continued to meet weekly. George started volunteering with Mouzon United Methodist Church and singing in their choir; for quite some time he worked as treasurer for the church. In 1985 George took another IBM assignment to Germany and lived there with Letitia through the summer of 1988. Sally, Anna, and Julie were each able to attend school in Europe during this time, and the family made many travels including to Egypt, Croatia, the Jutland portion of Denmark, and Prague in the Czech Republic.

George weathered the many changes IBM was going through, and continued traveling for work and pleasure - he and Letitia went to Ireland and Mexico, New Orleans, and Charleston among other places - and he saw each of his daughters marry and start families of their own (bringing travels to Germany, Austria, the Western US, Kentucky, and Georgia).

After 42 years, George retired from IBM, though he did contract work for another couple of years, and he and Letitia moved on a whim to Wilmington, NC in 2003. They had owned a small house in Banner Elk, NC where they had contemplated retiring, and a timeshare in Litchfield Beach on the NC coast, but Wilmington captured their hearts. Here George dove headfirst into service, reading newspapers for the blind with the Eastern Area Radio Services, cleaning cat cages for adoptable cats at Petco for at least ten years, occasionally volunteering at a homeless shelter, and working on the Wilmington Transit Board for six years. Where in younger years George, Bob, and Luke had been the three musketeers, in Wilmington, George met friends Wayne Jackson (through fellow neighbor and friend Jack Bate) and Mike Page and they became the three amigos. All were deeply involved with Civitan, holding various leadership positions (George as treasurer and president). They worked together to clean ‘Civitan Alley’ in downtown Wilmington and volunteered at the Good Shepherd Center. Wayne and George were biking buddies.

George looked for a folk dance outlet in Wilmington and not finding that, became involved in the Cape Fear Contra Dancers. He loved the weekly camaraderie and eventually, when his knees started bothering him, started calling dances. Here he was once again the sound guy. George became, initially, the lighting guy at the Wilmington Railroad Museum when he added a headlight to one of the model setups. He employed his skills in leadership (he was president of the board) and technical roles at the museum and can be heard in displays throughout giving voice to train history and model layouts. In 2010, George and Wayne had a grand train adventure to Hamburg, Germany and the world’s largest train museum. This led in 2011 to George helping the Wilmington Railroad Museum attain the Guinness World Record for the longest Model Train - 31 locomotives running autonomously on a single track.

George and Letitia were members of the Unity Church of Wilmington where George was once again in the choir; they later left to join the Spiritual Soal Center. When they decided to move to Plantation Village, George was excited to join the men's group and the choir and was happy to lend a hand with the holiday lights. He was planning more trips including back to Stuttgart, Germany and a river cruise. George and Letitia were saddened that his cancer diagnosis put a stop to these plans, but he was surrounded by love when he slipped peacefully away. A celebration of George’s life is being planned for July 29th in Wilmington.