Dorothy “Dee” Dann Collins Torbert ’42 died in Dallas on June 13, one month short of her 100th birthday.

Dee came to Wellesley from Maplewood, N.J. Her mother, sister, several aunts, two daughters (Dorothy Collins Weaver ’68 and Nancy Collins Fisher ’72), and several nieces were also alumnae.

After graduation, Dee married Jim Collins, a Dallas native who would become a seven-term U.S. congressman representing the 3rd District of Texas while Dee served a key leadership role in practically every civic organization in Dallas. Dee’s lifetime of civic service was recognized in 1997 when she was presented the Outstanding Philanthropist Award by the Dallas Association of Fund-Raising Executives. The Children’s Center and the neonatal building at Baylor Hospital, and the Goodwill Headquarters Building in Dallas are all named in her honor.

From 1972 to 1975, Dee led the Wellesley College Alumnae Association as president, and beginning in 1973, she served for 12 years on the Wellesley College Board of Trustees. While a trustee, she chaired the Future of Wellesley Committee that recommended Wellesley should remain a women’s college and recommit to its mission of educating women to become leaders for tomorrow. Thanks to the generosity of the Collins family, the performing arts center/theater at Wellesley is known simply as “the Collins.”

Several years after Jim Collins died, Dee married Vance Torbert, her high school sweetheart from New Jersey, in 1995. They enjoyed pursuing their passion for travel. She was a master of the lost art of letter writing; she wrote beautiful letters to her countless friends and family. From summer camp friends to former First Lady Laura Bush, she maintained decades of correspondence with her friends—always in perfect penmanship—up until her final days. Dee loved to read, and until a year ago, always had a front seat in a literature class full of “senior readers” taught by a University of Texas professor.

Dee took special pride in her three children, nine grandchildren, and 19 great-grandchildren, and she treasured the time she spent with all the generations every summer in Maine. Dee was bright and fun and gracious—a mentor to many, and much loved by her many friends in Dallas and elsewhere.

By Georgia Sue Herberger Black ’58