Dorothy P. George, 103, of Long Branch, passed away peacefully, Thursday, December 14^th at home.

Dorothy was a true daughter of Long Branch.  It’s where she lived her entire life, growing up on Atlantic Ave near the ocean with her parents, Peter and Georgia Karunos. The two had immigrated from the village of Anavryti near Sparta in Greece.  They opened an eatery called Peter’s, a fixture on the Long Branch boardwalk, where McCloone’s Ale House is today.  After she graduated from Long Branch High School in the 1930’s, Dorothy went to nursing school in Trenton.  She came back and worked at Monmouth Hospital.  One of her first jobs was caring for patients at the height of the polio epidemic. She washed and then hand-cranked rolls of hot wet cloth to use as bandages to wrap her patient’s limbs.  It was before the invention of the Salk vaccine and the bandages were the only way to bring them some relief.   She also worked at Fort Monmouth during WW2 but returned to Monmouth Medical Center where she continued nursing until her retirement in the 1980s.

Dorothy and her husband Walter had met in high school, got married after World War Two and settled down on Westwood Ave. Dotty always kept in close touch with her friends from high school, especially “the sewing club” as they called themselves, though almost no sewing was ever done.  Vivien Carroll (Verocchi); Anna May Van Brunt (Woolley); Lois Wardell, Marty Locilento, and her beloved cousin, Theodora Apostolocus.  When Walt died in 2007, Dorothy lived on in her home for the rest of her life.

She was a great reader of novels, three to four a week, and a doting mother to her children Michael and Deborah.  She loved her daughter-in-law, Carol and was heartbroken when she died, as well as her grandchildren Eddie and Baindu and all the George cousins.

Visitation Sunday, December 17^th, 3:00-5:00 pm at the Woolley-Boglioli Funeral Home, 10 Morrell Street, Long Branch. Funeral home service Monday, December 18^th at 10am. Burial to follow in Woodbine Cemetery, Oceanport.