By Sentinel Staff
Dorothy Klingler and Gladys Macintyre have a lot in common.
Both were born Dec. 25, 1922, both served during World War II, and both celebrated their 100th birthdays Tuesday at the Sitka Pioneers Home, with family and friends.
There are some differences. Gladys is from Scotland and Dorothy from California. Gladys served in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), and Dorothy in the U.S. Navy WAVES. But both had Sitka family at the party.
Gladys’ son Richard, his wife Rose, his daughter Jennifer Patrick and his granddaughter Ommaney Rose Patrick were there. (His son, Lt. Stephen Macintyre, is in the U.S. Navy, stationed in San Diego.) Dorothy’s son Mark Klingler, his wife Denise and his daughter Iris and son Kelly also were there.
Gladys grew up in Aberdeen, Scotland, and joined the WRNS in 1941. She served in an administrative capacity in the payroll office, first in London then because of bombing raids in Scotland. After the war she immigrated to America, where an aunt and uncle lived in New York, in the Bronx. She was a secretary for Prudential Life Insurance Company in New York City for many years. In 1951 she was on her way back to Scotland on the Queen Mary for a family visit and met Alexander Macintyre, also traveling back to Scotland, from Toronto, Canada, where he’d immigrated after serving in the British Army. The two connected again in New York City six months later, married, had a son, Richard, in 1954, and in 1962 moved to Geneva, New York, then Baltimore, Maryland. Alexander died in 1996, and Gladys moved to Florida to care for her aging parents. After their deaths she came to Sitka, in 2002, to be near her son and his family.
Dorothy was born in Marysville, California, then lived in Los Angeles, graduating from high school there. She enlisted in the U.S. Navy WAVES as soon as she turned 21, and was stationed in San Pedro, California. She met another Navy enlistee, Bill Klingler, and the two married in 1947. They lived in Oklahoma, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico before loading up their VW bus and four kids and driving to Anchorage, in 1961.
Dorothy worked at Elmendorf Air Force Base before joining the IRS, where she became the first female collection agent in Alaska.
She also earned her pilot’s license in the early 1970s, and she and her husband, who was assistant superintendent of schools for Anchorage, built a log cabin on their homestead in Anchor Point.
After Bill retired, the couple spent time in Idaho and Hawaii – where Dorothy ran the Maui Marathon – and after her retirement from the IRS, the two enjoyed some 23 years of fishing, hunting and exploring the outdoors.
They moved to the Pioneers Home in 2008, where he passed away.
Another way in which Gladys and Dorothy are alike is that both are in wheelchairs because of broken bones in falls.
Gladys is hard of hearing and her eyesight is poor, her daughter-in-law Rose said, but she enjoys all the musical programs at the Pioneers Home, and loves getting to be with her great-granddaughter Ommaney Rose.
Dorothy is “a joy to spend time with,” her daughter-in-law Denise Klingler said, and is “willing to try new adventures and is always looking for ways to help others.”
Another way in which Gladys and Dorothy are alike is that both are in wheelchairs because of broken bones in falls.
