Daughter of Iowa natives Kathryn (Potter) Morgan and Charles "Bert" Morgan, she lived as a child in Arizona and California, graduating from Castlemont High School in Oakland before attending Oregon Institute of Technology in Portland. Dorothy met Charles Wesley Hammack in college classes and married him on Feb. 14, 1938, in Portland; he died in 1979. A longtime resident of Northeast Portland and former librarian of Martin Luther King Elementary School, Dorothy devoted herself to community life and especially to public education in many ways; as an active PTA member, school volunteer, and neighbor, as a school librarian and informal tutor, as a SMART program literacy volunteer, and as mentor to several generations of young people. She participated in reading and discussion groups throughout her life in Portland, including the Delphian Society in the 1950s and the OASIS Education Program in the 1990s, as well as in lively and informal book and investment clubs. She served as the foreman of a grand jury. She loved reading, gardening, cooking, sewing, scrabble, and the music of the Oregon Symphony. She lives on in the love of the language and conversation that she engendered in her children, her grandchildren and in many others as well. Dorothy was the beloved sister of Clare E. Gropp, of Naperville, IL; and of Robert Morgan, who died several years ago in North Sandwich, NH; mother of Ann E.H. Shaffer (Walter E. Shaffer), Seaside; Floyd M. Hammack (Nancy M. Walker), New York; and David C. Hammack (Lorraine S. Hammack), Cleveland; grandmother of Philip J. and Andrew C. Hammack of New York; Kathryn E. Shaffer of Brooklyn, NY; Rebecca M. Shaffer of Seattle; Elizabeth R. Hammack of Boston; and Peter S. Hammack of New York; great-grandmother of Benjamin K. Hammack of New York; and sister-in-law to Velva Hammack of LaGrande and Donna Hammack of Portland.