Doris Kay Witt

Doris Kay Witt left us on New Year’s Day, 2023, sort of surrounded by her loving family.  In keeping with her tenacious nature, she waited until the four-minute mid-day shift change, while one family member was coming down the stairs and another was going up, to quietly make her exit. She will be missed by all who knew her, especially her husband, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and friends.

Doris was born on October 25, 1934 to Afton Hancock Kay and John Henry Kay in Taylor, Arizona. As the fourth born, she was the baby of a family of four girls that included Louise (Jay) Hatch, Corrine (Bobby) McGhee, and Janice (AJ) Freeman, with whom she spent many hours avoiding, or finding, trouble depending on who you asked. Her father died when she was four years old and she and her sisters were raised by a single mother in 1940’s Taylor, Arizona.

In 1952, while working at The Grill Café in Snowflake, Arizona, Doris met Jim McCarty.  They married in 1953 and had three daughters, Liz (Howard Jones) McCarty, Victoria McCarty, and Kathy (Mike) Fish. Doris spent years engulfed in sewing, cooking, boating, water skiing, camping, PTA meetings, private flute and clarinet lessons, sports matches, speech tournaments, school plays, band camp, working polls (voting polls), designing flower arrangements, gardening, bookkeeping, driving garbage and dump trucks, painting artistically, and fiercely defending her daughters.   

Doris and Jim divorced in 1977, after which she learned to snow ski, and then bought a home in Paradise Valley so she could keep herself occupied and live in a warmer climate in winter. During this period she became a dental assistant, and also spent time in Safford, Arizona learning everything one might want to know, or not, about calves and running a feed lot, finally returning to sanity and Show Low full time in the early 1980s.

In 1984 she married her paperboy, Larry “Witt” Witt, whom she met when she and Jim were living in Ash Fork, AZ in the early 1950’s and he was delivering their newspaper. Don’t read anything into that. It was over thirty years later, Witt was living in Show Low at the time, and he was no longer employed as a paperboy.

Along with Witt, came two sons, Doug (Julie) Witt and Mike Witt. Doris and Witt embarked on a life of sharing children, grandchildren, great- grandchildren and logging, among other things, but the logging stands out as an interesting way to spend a day.  Witt logged in Arizona and many other places, with Doris by his side, until they decided to stay home, at which time Witt began delivering materials for Perkins Cinders and Doris volunteered with the Show Low Historical Society at the Show Low museum until she and Witt retired. Doris and Witt were married for 38 glorious years before they went their separate ways, because, hey, this isn’t Egypt.

Doris loved to read, garden, clean, (yeah, we know), paint, embroider, hike, and cook. She excelled at them all. In her early 40’s, Doris developed arthritis which became debilitating over the years. She proved to be a tough old bird and carried around more metal than Ironman. Eventually it curbed her active lifestyle but she continued to laugh and light up a room. She filled her homes with her sparkling laughter and beautiful smile, always welcoming to all. Doris was fun, beautiful, determined, resilient, and she was a sweetheart. She is forever in our hearts and we will miss her for the rest of our lives.

Doris was preceded in death by her father, mother, sisters, and the father of her children. She leaves behind her husband, daughters, sons, sons-in-law, daughter-in-law, nine grandchildren;  Alexander (Crystal) Ellerbe, Trevor Fish, Tempest Jones, Anthony (Amanda) Ellerbe, Evan (Cara) Fish, Brennon (Danica) Fish, April (Jason) Carl, Jeremy (Erica) Witt, and Maryann Witt, and 23 great-grandchildren. The service was private.

Donations may be made in her name to Humane Society of the White Mountains, PO Box 909 Lakeside AZ 85929,  https://hswm.org/; The Trevor Project,  https://www.thetrevorproject.org/; Show Low Historical Society, PO Box 3468 Show Low, AZ 85902; or Compassus Hospice, Compassus Living Foundation, 503 N. Euclid Avenue, Suite 9E Bay City, MI 48706, https://www.compassus.com/about-us/giving-and-donations.