Delcie’s Corner to honor ‘everybody’s grandma’

Delcie Doose, 88, of Liberty Twp., reads to children at the East Butler County YMCA. The YMCA will dedicate Delcie’s Corner in the children’s room.

Delcie Doose’s lifelong love of reading and literacy started when she was 3 years old, learning her ABC’s forward and backward.

Doose was probably best known for her volunteer work at the East Butler County YMCA in Fairfield Twp., reading to children while parents were working out. The

Alabama native and Liberty Twp. resident died on Jan. 26 of a heart attack at Atrium Medical Center. She was 88.

As her children were growing up, Doose was involved in school activities and parent volunteer school groups, said her daughter, Jocelyn Doose.

“She read to us every night while we were washing the dinner dishes,” Jocelyn Doose said.

“If it was a real good book, we washed dishes real slowly.”

Doose was a charter member of the East Butler County YMCA, said board chairman Bill Miller. She was an original member of the YaYa’s, a senior citizens group that evolved into a group of people wanting to make a difference for the YMCA, including doing auctions for the annual support campaign, he said.

Part of her involvement with the YaYa’s included reading to children, Miller said.

“It became something that was great for the Y because they’d love to sit on Delcie’s lap and read a book,” Miller said. “She was quite the attraction for it. She was like everybody’s grandma.”

The YMCA will dedicate Delcie’s

Grandma