Dorothy Pearl Bellick

Dorothy Pearl Bellick 

 

GUILDERLAND — Dorothy Pearl Bellick, a longtime Guilderland resident and one of the first feminists in the Capital District, is described by her husband as a “loving daughter, sister, wife, mother, and grandmother.”

She died in Florida, where she had lived, on Oct, 29, 2015. Ms. Bellick was 85. A memorial service in Albany is planned for May 22.

Her husband, Jack Bellick, recalled how they first met. Mr. Bellick was a consultant designing commercial kitchens. Ms. Bellick was a secretary for her brother’s company that sold appliances for these kitchens.

The two met very briefly at the end of an event, Mr. Bellick recalled, and the first thing Dorothy said to him was, “Are you married?” She then called him a couple of weeks later and invited him over for a bridge game and dinner.

The refrigerator in her apartment was filled mostly with books, he said, and it soon became apparent that she had no idea how to cook the baked steak she had planned, so he helped her, and they made it together. They spent the evening laughing so hard with a girlfriend of Ms. Bellick and another fellow that the janitor eventually came and pounded on the door and said that the neighbors were complaining about the noise.

“Our life after that was a wonderful 54 years,” Mr. Bellick said.

Ms. Bellick was born Dorothy Pearl Binder on Nov. 30, 1930 to Tom and Bessie Binder of Trenton, New Jersey. She graduated from high school in Maplewood, New Jersey in 1949 and went on to secretarial school and a number of jobs. Her father did not believe that women should go to college, Mr. Bellick said.

The Bellicks married just months after meeting, and lived in Providence, Rhode Island before settling in Guilderland, where they raised two sons, Thomas and Arthur.

Ms. Bellick was a passionate advocate for women’s rights, her family wrote in a tribute, and led countless rallies, sit-ins, and legislative lobbying efforts, while actively supporting women running for office. She was inspired, her family wrote, “by great women like Congresswoman Bella Abzug, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, and New York Lieutenant Governor Mary Anne Krupsak.”

She and friends established a Schenectady office of the National Organization for Women (NOW), with Ms. Bellick in charge of public relations.

She published, with several friends, what may well have been the first women’s rights newsletter in the state, running off the 25-page monthly issues on a mimeograph machine in her dining room and selling them for 35 cents each. “It was pretty radical stuff,” said her son Thomas. “Different women would write stories, reports about meetings, poems, and diatribes about this or that. Some of it was a little X-rated, even.”

She also fought for the passage of Title IX, a measure that would require schools to admit girls equally to sports teams and any other educational activities that received federal financial assistance, and for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Ms. Bellick was a staunch Democrat, serving as a committee member of the Albany County and Guilderland Town Democratic committees, her family wrote in a tribute. For many years, she also served as office manager for the Guilderland Ballet.

Ms. Bellick attended college in mid-life, earning first an associate’s degree from Schenectady County Community College, and then, in 1985, when she was 54, a bachelor’s degree in political science and journalism with honors  from the State University of New York at Albany. Her graduation ceremony from SUNYA was the day after Thomas’s from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and a week before Arthur’s from Guilderland High School.

This flurry of graduations across the generations was unusual enough — and the graduation party big enough — that it was covered by a local television news crew.

After she and Mr. Bellick retired to Florida, she continued her activism for the rest of her life, including opposing the butterfly ballot and working to get out the vote among Democrats.

She was a doting grandmother to her four grandsons, Tyler, Michael, Daniel, and Kyle, and her only granddaughter, Rebecca, her family wrote.

Mr. Bellick said that, after her death, he and his sons took out a boat and scattered her ashes in the Atlantic Ocean, as she had wished.

****

Dorothy Pearl Bellick is survived by her husband, Jack, of Deerfield Beach, Florida, and by her two sons, Thomas, and his wife, Linda Bellick (née Blaiz), of Schenectady, and Arthur, and his wife, Milla Filippova-Bellick, of Pompano Beach, Florida. Her parents, Tom and Bessie Binder, died before her, as did her brothers, Harold and William (Bill).

A memorial service is scheduled for Sunday, May 22, at 2 p.m. at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany at 405 Washington Avenue in Albany. Her husband and sons will attend, and all of her friends are welcome. Memorial contributions may be made to the Pap Corps, Boca Century Chapter, 1166 West Newport Center Drive, Suite 114, Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442, or online at www.thepapcorps.org

​— By Elizabeth Floyd Mair

 

 

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