CORMIER, DOROTHY ELIZABETH, 93

Dorothy Elizabeth Cormier died peacefully Dec. 18 at Haven Hospice of Gainesville. She was 93. She was a retired public school teacher and a resident of Gainesville for 53 years.

Dorothy was born in Scotia, California, a small lumbering town in the redwood empire. She attended public schools in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from San Francisco State College. She began her teaching career in Brawley, California where she met her husband Clifton. They were married in Williamsburg, VA. She taught school at military bases in Virginia, the Philippines, and North Carolina.

Dorothy was a member of the Florida Education Association and taught at Stephen Foster Elementary School and later became the school's library media specialist. Dorothy traveled extensively during and after her husband's military career. After retirement they attended Elderhostel programs in the U.S. and abroad.

In addition to Clifton, she is survived by daughter Leslie Samler and her husband Jack of Sanibel, Florida.

Plans for a memorial service will be announced. 

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Save the Redwoods League, 114 Sansome St., Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104; or to Haven Hospice of Gainesville.
 

Published in Gainesville Sun from Dec. 21 to Dec. 22, 2013

 

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CLIFTON JOSEPH CORMIER

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CORMIER, 
CLIFTON (CLIF) J. 
Clifton Cormier died peacefully at Terrace Rehab after a brief illness on February 4, 2017. 
Born in Lake Arthur (Southwest) Louisiana, Clif joined the Marine Corps after graduating high school in 1938. 

At the outbreak of WWII he was serving with the First Marine Brigade in Iceland alongside British troops guarding the 'Outpost in the North Atlantic' from German invasion. During this time he stood inspection for Prime Minister Winston Churchill. 
After returning to the States, he helped form the Third Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, NC and was promoted to the rank of warrant officer. In early 1943 the Third was deployed to the South Pacific and participated in the assault and seizure of Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Mariana Islands and Iwo Jima. 

 

He married Dorothy Carr of San Francisco, CA in 1945. 
In 1946 he served with the First Marine Division in North China which repatriated prisoners of war and guarded railroads from seizure by the Chinese Communist army. 
Clif was posted at Quantico, VA at the outbreak of the Korean War, and in that conflict commanded an artillery battery as a First Lieutenant. He completed tours of duty at Twenty Nine Palms, CA and Subic Bay, Philippines before his retirement with the rank of Captain at Camp Lejeune, NC after 22 years of active duty. 

After graduating from the University of Florida with a journalism degree in 1962 he was employed by The Gainesville Sun as a reporter, columnist and editor for 22 years. He was the recipient of a FL Press Association Award and 2 School Bell Awards for distinguished news reporting in the field of education. 

After retiring from the Sun he and Dorothy traveled extensively attending Elderhostel travel-study programs. Clif was a devoted husband and father who loved to travel, the game of golf, the LSU Tigers and books. 

 

He was preceded in death by his wife of 68 years, Dorothy, and is survived by his daughter, Leslie Samler and her husband, Jack, of Sanibel, FL and many extended relatives, mostly located in Louisiana. 

A graveside service will be held Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 3:00 pm at Forest Meadows, 4100 NW 39th Avenue, Gainesville. FL with a reception to follow. 
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to the charity of your choice. 
www. forestmeadowsfh.com

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Published in Gainesville Sun from Feb. 8 to Feb. 9, 2017

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Marine veteran and former Gainesville Sun reporter and city editor Clif Cormier died Saturday at age 98.

Cormier, who was born in 1918 in Lake Arthur, Louisiana, died while undergoing treatment at the Terrace Health & Rehabilitation Center in southwest Gainesville following a 10-day hospital stay after being diagnosed with pneumonia, said his daughter and only child Leslie Samler of Sanibel.

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Samler said funeral services, which will be held at Forest Meadows Funeral Home, have not been planned, but dates and times will be posted on the funeral home’s website as soon as they are finalized.

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Cormier’s wife of 68 years, Dorothy Carr, preceded him in death in 2013.

Samler said her father was a wonderful parent and loving husband who was devoted to his family and lived by the book.

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“That is kind of a military and Marine Corps way of life,” she said. “It was pretty much black and white — no gray. And because of that, you always knew where you stood with him. It was either right or wrong, not necessarily in his eyes, but in God’s and society’s.”

After Cormier retired from military service, a career that included 22 years of active service, he moved to Gainesville, where he completed his bachelor’s degree in journalism.

After graduation at the age of 40, he accepted a position with The Gainesville Sun, where he worked as an education reporter, columnist and city editor. He retired after working for the paper for 22 years.

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Samler said her father remained at The Sun past retirement age because the field of journalism was rapidly changing due to technology and he wanted to learn how to adapt to the age of computers.

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“He needed and wanted to keep up with the times,” she said. “He never wanted to not be with it as far as the technology and what was happening not only in journalism but the world. There were just things that he felt was important to learn and understand.”

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During his career at The Sun, Cormier received several awards for reporting, including a 1966 Florida Press Association award for feature writing and two School Bell Awards in the 1970s for his reporting on education, said Samler.

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“Clif was the city editor who would get on a reporter’s back and make them do a re-write to make sure it was accurate and fair,” said former Sun managing editor Rob Oglesby, who is now retired. “He was an outstanding member of the news department.

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Cormier also self-published a book in 2002 titled “A Postcard from Joseph” that details both his WWII experiences and his later reinvention as a journalist. Though it’s a memoir, Cormier wrote the book in third person and referred to the protagonist as Joseph, his middle name.

Samler said her father based the name off an old WWI drawing of Marines raising the U.S. flag that was featured on postcards handed out to enlistees with instruction that they write their mothers, which Cormier did.

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His mother kept the postcard and had it framed, and when Cormier found it, he also found the name for his memoir, Samler said.

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No matter where he was or what he was doing, Cormier was seen by many as a man of immense integrity, Samler said.

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“My father was always respected by other people no matter what he was doing, whether in the military, as a student or working at the paper,” she said. “Anyone who he came into contact with in the community respected him, and I saw that all my life. I was proud to be his daughter.”

Bob Gasche, the last surviving member of the Gainesville World War II veteran’s group that calls themselves the Iwo Trio, described Cormier as not only a great Marine, but a great man.

“He did his duty, he was very well trained with artillery and he was always ready to do whatever was necessary — even under fire — to get the job done.”

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“He made his artillery unit one of the best and we were very proud to know him. He served his country well.”

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On Tuesday, Gasche will host an Iwo Trio meeting at Jason’s Deli at 6791 Newberry Road, during which a commemorative service will be held. The meeting is open to the community.

Cormier’s 22 years of Marine Corps service included a Pacific tour during WWII and time in the Korean War, during which he served as a first lieutenant of an artillery battery and was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal.

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Years later, he would form the Iwo Trio with Gashe, now the last surviving member, and the late Clair C. Chaffin, who died in a 2009 South Carolina shooting.

Gasche said Cormier had quite the career, having fought on Bougainville Island, the Solomon Islands, Guam, the Mariana Islands, and eventually Iwo Jima, where he arrived shortly after the initial invasion and worked to place telecommunication lines in the ground so that ships could communicate with those on the island.

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Gasche said he also served as a forward observer, who would direct artillery fire.

“He was there in the thick of it,” said Gasche. “He went through the whole Battle of Iwo Jima and never got a scratch from enemy artillery, machine guns of anything else.”

Cormier, Chaffin and Gasche began meeting at the McAlister’s Deli for lunches and soon decided that they should try to organize their meetings into a group that would educate people about the WWII Pacific Campaign and the Battle of Iwo Jima.

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They named themselves The Iwo Trio, and over time, their meetings grew so big that they had to look for a new place to meet due to crowd noise and space. After some time, they were offered a private space at Jason’s Deli in Gainesville, where they could hold private meetings and place war memorabilia on a wall, Gasche said.

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The group also performed outreach at schools, universities and colleges as well as churches.

“We were able to tell people that they had a heritage that they could be proud of and that there were a lot of young men, mostly teenagers, during WWII and other conflicts that sacrificed an awful lot to give people the freedom they have today and a heritage that they enjoy,” Gasche said.

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