Dorothy Ruth Dey - Wellington's Greatest Historian

When Dorothy Ruth Dey passed away on June 11th, 1999, the Wellington Daily News' headline read "Wellington's Greatest Historian Dies".

Dey earned that distinction by publishing well-researched, in-depth local history articles in the Wellington Daily News. But long before Dey began writing for the Wellington Daily News, she taught Latin for 40 years to Junior and Senior High students in Wellington and later Salina.  

Before Dey retired from teaching, she wrote a “New Unit in Fourth Grade Geography and Historical Calendar for Wellington, Kansas.”  

Included in this collection is a 1941 Historical Pageant for Wellington, Kansas script Dey co-authored in 1941 to celebrate the 70^th Anniversary of Wellington’s founding. The pageant was a three-day event held in the Wellington Memorial Auditorium and participated in by more than 600 local school children. 

You can read a copy of Dey’s script with notations in her own handwriting, here, and see a copy of the 1941 Wellington Historic Pageant Program program here.

Following her retirement from teaching, Dey began writing for the Wellington Daily News, and her local history articles were widely read.

 In 1971, to celebrate the 100^th Anniversary of the founding of Wellington, Dey authored a 100-page historical insert for the Wellington Daily News' Centennial edition, and then clipped the articles to create an 1871–1971 Wellington Centennial Scrapbook for the Wellington Public Library.  Click here to access the scrapbook.

Click here on: Wellington's Greatest Historian to read more about Dorothy Dey.

Credits

Thank you to the family of Dorothy Ruth Dey for this historic collection