Dorothy Lou Galbraith: Old Town Artist and Dog Lover
By Don DeBat
Creating beautiful art, breeding show dogs and rearing children were the highlights of Dorothy (Lou) DeBat Galbraith’s long life.
My sister, nicknamed “Dot,” brother Alfred, and I grew up in the 1950s on tough, blue-collar Halsted Street in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood. Dot passed away quietly at age 87 on July 28th in rural Canton, IL.
As a young teenager, Dorothy always dreamed of raising dogs and showing them at the “International Dog Show” that was held at the Chicago’s Amphitheater on the city’s West Side.
Dot learned the love of animals and about art from her father, Chester Louis DeBat, a Chicago cab driver who immigrated to the Windy City from New Orleans in the 1920s. Although Chester loved all three of his children, I always thought he loved Dot the most because she was sympathetic to animals—especially dogs—as much as he was.
Dot’s love of art and dogs began
At Christmas time, Chester would sketch horses, dogs, jet planes and rockets on our big ornament box stored in the attic. As a youngster Dot raised pet hamsters in a cage in her bedroom. One day, the hamsters escaped, and were never found. That drove Marie, my nervous mother, nearly crazy.
As a teenager, Dot took photos of “Topper,” her toy-collie mutt, and used my mother’s coveted silver-plated bread tray as an imaginary “Best-In-Show” award. One of Dot’s best friends on Halsted St. was a middle-aged woman named Tonti who had 30 dogs. As a kid, I thought Tonti smelled like wet puppies, and needed a bath.
On a chilly winter day in the mid-1950s, Dot rescued a beautiful Great Dane stranded on the ice of a Lincoln Park lagoon. She brought the huge stray animal home and named him “Fawn.” Then, she fed the brindle-colored show dog, much to the chagrin of my mother.
Our mother, Marie, a no-nonsense Southern Indiana farm girl, who worked at a Kosher deli near Halsted and Roosevelt Rd., had no use for animals of any kind around the house.
Fawn ate like a horse. We constantly fed that hound—cheap canned dog food, dinner leftovers, and meat scraps from mom’s deli near Maxwell St. Marie, in a kind moment, even cooked up pots of white rice to fill up the beast. One day before dinner, Fawn, whose head rose higher than the kitchen table, lapped up a pound of butter with a single lick. Marie, a penny-pincher, was not happy.
For animal-lover Dot, Lincoln Park Zoo was her playground. She often walked Fawn in the park. Unfortunately, one day after school the dog’s real owner saw her, followed her home to our humble frame three-flat apartment building, and claimed the animal. Despite receiving gifts from the legal owners of the Great Dane, giving up Fawn truly broke Dot’s heart.
Love of art blossomed at Newberry
Dorothy’s love of art blossomed at Newberry Elementary School on Willow and Burling streets. Although she had no formal art training, Dot was naturally talented. She could sketch animals and people beautifully.
After Dot’s 8th-grade graduation, our teacher, Miss Grace, remembered Dorothy was my sister. My grammar school teachers always posted my temper-color art, inspired by Dot, on the bulletin board.
Miss Grace knew I owned a wood-burning craft set. So, even after graduation, she asked Dorothy to create pencil sketches, including one of a ballerina, on cedar cigar boxes which I had sanded smooth. Then, I wood-burned the image into the cedar. The teacher loved the boxes and used them to store her jewelry.
While attending Waller High School (now Lincoln Park High), Dot worked summers as an assistant to Jack Funk, a professional show-dog handler. Dot cleaned kennels, groomed dogs and learned how to professionally show canines.
Funk, her mentor, connected Dot to a breeder and she purchased “Tarzan,” a pedigreed Collie. Funk helped Dot show the dog, which earned several points toward his championship under the name “Satan’s Big Deal.”
As a beautiful, young teenager with thick, wavy brown hair and a shapely figure, Dot also liked flirting with boys.
When I was 8 years old, Dot taught me how to “pucker up” and kiss a girl, although I wouldn’t have a girlfriend until 15 years old. As a result, women have always told me I have “soft lips.”
At Waller High School, her teenage life was like a 1950s movie. Dot was a member of a cool, very social gang of teenagers that hung out after school sipping nickel Cokes and playing a Juke Box at the “V&L Grill” on Armitage east of Burling.
Dot’s first romantic love
Inspired by the 1953 Marlon Brando movie, “The Wild One,” teen boys at Waller wore blue jeans, wide black “motorcycle” belts, and white T-shirts with a pack of Lucky cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve. The scene was right out of the 1955 movie “Rebel Without a Cause,” starring James Dean and Natalie Wood.
That year, Dot became infatuated with blond, handsome William Eugene Galibraith, who she met painting stage sets for “Annie Get Your Gun,” a high-school play. “Gene,” who also acted in the play, was Dot’s James Dean.
Dot and Gene’s favorite 45-RPM Juke-Box record was “Earth Angel,” recorded in a Los Angels garage in 1954 by the Penguins. The record hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts and sold 10 million copies.
She also was a fan of teenage heart-throb Robert (Bobby) Wagner, who later married movie-star Natalie Wood. After high-school graduation, Dorothy attended business school and landed a good job as a bank teller on Michigan Ave.
Dot’s future husband, Gene Galbraith, joined the U.S. Marines after high school graduation to escape his troubled home life. He served for three years in the tank corps based at Twenty-Nine Palms, CA. Dot missed Gene, quit her job, and rode a Greyhound Bus to California to be with him. They married and lived in a trailer at the Marine base Dot said: “Those were the happiest years of my life.”
The Galbraith family
Their son, William Scott Galbraith, was born in 1958, and the couple moved back to Chicago after Gene’s honorable discharge from the Marines. As a young teen on Halsted St. I occasionally baby-sat Scott and changed his diapers.
In the early 1960s, Gene, also a gifted artist, painted, portraits and found work as a professional convention-display builder. Dot and Gene bought their first house with a Veterans-guaranteed loan—a modest three-bedroom, one-bath ranch, in northwest suburban Crystal Lake.
Dot gave birth to sons Gerald (Jerry) Eugene in 1960, and Robert Louis in 1962, then a daughter, Victoria Marie in 1968. Life was not easy after 11-year-old “Robbie” died of leukemia in 1973. Much later, in 1994, Gene Galbraith passed away of Lou Gerhrig’s Disease at the young age of 56. In 2015, Jerry contracted lung cancer and also passed away early, at age 55.
Scott and Jerry had long, successful careers in the building trades. Scott worked for decades as a successful union plumber. Today, at age 68, he is talented enough to build an entire house from scratch.
“Vicki,” who married Chris Strong, a school English teacher and talented musician, worked as a private investigator and currently is an insurance agent.
Photography and writing in the family DNA
In the 1950s, Dot’s older brother, the late Alfred Louis DeBat, was graduated in 1954 with a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University. Al DeBat, a world-renowned photographer, had a long career in magazines and digital photography. He rose to be Playboy Magazine’s editor of foreign editions.
Darkroom-trained on Halsted St. at age 10, this writer followed Al DeBat’s footsteps, attending the University of Missouri journalism school. After graduating with a master’s degree in 1968, I started a 27-year newspaper career as a business writer, real estate editor, sports copy editor and softball columnist at the Chicago Daily News.
Later, at the Chicago Sun-Times, I worked as real estate editor and an assistant managing editor. I was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1982, and wrote books on mortgage lending and Chicago neighborhoods. Today, I’m still writing a weekly column for Inside Newspapers along Chicago’s lakefront.
(Dot & brothers Don & Al, left)
Dot as a professional dog breeder
“Over the past 50 years or so, my mother ran her own successful dog-breeding business. Throughout those years, she bred Dobermans and Terriers,” said Vicki Galbraith Strong, her daughter.
Later in life, Dot expressed her creative-artistic talent in many ways, from painting and drawing to home crafts and interior design. She also had a great love of gardening, reading, and viewing classic, film-noir movies.
“Always the artist first, Mom painted animals in oils and acrylics, designed, sewed and created Hollywood-style 10-inch and 14-inch tall, fully dressed, hand-painted dolls,” daughter Vicki recalled.
Her favorites dolls were of Marylin Monroe in a classic white, billowing dress from the movie “The Seven-Year Itch,” and Scarlett O’Hara, dressed in green as star Vivian Leigh, in the 1939 classic movie, “Gone with the Wind.”
Another was a “Wedding Doll” she presented to this writer’s Realtor and author wife, Sara Benson, when we married.
Politically, like her father, Dot was a liberal, and a staunch, outspoken Democrat. Even in her 80s, she always garnered respect.
“Near the end, at the hospital, the staff called her “Miss Dorothy” (especially the men). She would get a little shy and give a half-smile,” said Vicki. “It reminded me of when we would go shopping. She would encounter a stockboy or store helper and ask him to reach for something on a shelf, and then give that same shy smile.”
“My mother lived a full and fantastic life. She was a bright and artistic woman, a real survivor,” said Scott Galbraith, her son. “Life is a long, winding road. Sometimes we get lost along the way. But Dot never gave up. She always was up-beat, had her father’s great sense of humor, and love of dogs and art,” Scott recalled.
This writer always admired Dot, and loved her for that special determination to succeed in life, regardless of the roadblocks along that winding road. Dot’s cloud in heaven will be filled with puppies, art and laughter, and likely a shy smile.
Dot’s family survivors
Dorothy DeBat Galbraith is survived by: son, William Scott Galbraith (Jeanette Delfino), daughter, Victoria M. Strong (late husband Chistopher McLean Strong), step-daughter, Sarah Rose Galbraith, and brother Donald J. DeBat (Sara Elizebeth Benson).
In addition, Dorothy is survived by 10 grandchildren, and 19 great grandchildren and several nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews. Her funeral and burial were August 3rd at Crystal Lake Memorial Cemetery in Crystal Lake, IL.
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Don DeBat is co-author of “Escaping Condo Jail,” the definitive guide to condominium living. A veteran real estate voice, he provides essential insights for navigating communal ownership at escapingcondojail.com. Stay updated on housing news at dondebat.biz. Don is currently writing “Chicago’s Game,” a look at the history and lifestyle of 16-inch softball.
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