Dolores Moira Cullinane

In Loving Memory of Dolores Moira Cullinane

February 1, 1931 – November 5, 2025

Dolores was born to Michael and Mary McGuire on February 1,1931. She was the sixth of seven children and the youngest girl. Doey, as she was known to friends and family, attended St. Alphonsus Grade School and Holy Angels High School. Dolores' father, Michael, died when she was just nine years old. Subsequently, her mother Mary began working the graveyard shift full time as a Registered Nurse to support Dolores and her six siblings: Michael "Mickey", Catherine, Dominic "Don", Mary, Patricia or Sister Angelica (ex post facto her novitiate), as well as her little brother John. Influenced by her mother’s demonstrably strong work ethic, Dolores, herself, also worked full time to finance her education at Seattle University, first at Jorgensen Steel and later at the Seattle Post Intelligencer. It was at Seattle University where she met her future husband John B. Cullinane. The two were married on January 17, 1953, and remained steadfastly devoted to each other until John's death on December 10, 2014.

Dolores and John were devout Catholics and raised their four children accordingly. The two held the strong conviction that this was the most important gift that they could bestow to their children. Dolores and John were devoted to the Marian movement of priests and were longstanding members of the Sera Club, as well as the first Saturday prayer group, which as the name implies, is a monthly gathering in purpose of praying the Rosary.

Dolores volunteered for several years at Good Shepard School for Girls until its closure in 1973. She devoted countless hours in service to her parish church, which included annual Christmas bazaars. It was this endeavor that led to the creation of her first business venture - "Trees by Doey", through which she sold decorative miniature Christmas trees, painstakingly assembled by hand. In addition to direct retail sales, her client list grew to include top tier vendors such as Bon Marché and Frederick & Nelson. As her reputation for quality product and service grew, she came to be recruited to personally provide Christmas decorations for the Space Needle as well as various Washington Mutual bank branches.

Similarly, Dolores’ second successful business came as a product of her effort to provide floral arrangements for her friends’ weddings while minimizing their expenditure. Given the high cost of fresh flowers, and her desire to diminish said cost, she conceived of the idea of a device which allowed for those same flowers that were mounted on the church pews during the wedding to be detached and redeployed to the reception area as well, effectively, halving the aggregate outlay for her friends. This innovation was christened “Doey’s Vase Clamps”, for which, she was awarded multiple patents. This enterprise still operates today under the deft leadership of her

second child, Cathy, whose own artistic sensibility has both complemented and enhanced Dolores’ original vision. Dolores’ accomplishments as a businesswoman would not have come as a surprise to anyone who knew Dolores as a young girl who just happened to live next door to a golf course. Every day after school Dolores would retrieve lost golf balls, clean them up, and sell them back to golfers the next morning as new, or at least, as a reasonable facsimile thereof.

During the time she owned and operated the aforementioned companies, Dolores relied upon the accounting acumen of her husband John. Together, the two of them made a great team. Dolores’ infectious and ready smile and personable demeanor allowed her to cultivate many strong relationships throughout her life, not only in her business dealings, but also in her personal life as well. She had many longstanding friendships with girls she had gone to school with, several dating back to grade school. Though she made friends easily, she never took for granted the value and import of each and every individual that she deemed to be a friend.

In later years, Dolores became increasingly devoted to the practice and profession of her Catholic faith. Dolores attended daily mass as long as she was able and prayed multiple Rosaries for the intentions of friends and family on a daily basis. She intently strived to live up to her deeply ingrained Catholic values.

Though some might conclude that her formative years may have constituted somewhat less than ideals conditions, insofar, as she was raised by a widowed mother during the height of the Depression, she remained an eternal optimist with an inordinately positive outlook on life Despite growing up poor, she always appreciated the fact that her mother and aunts who grew up in an orphanage operated by Italian nuns, faced much tougher conditions than she and her siblings did. Though she herself may be characterized as slightly more vociferous, Dolores greatly admired the quiet strength and resolve of her mother, Mary McGuire as well as the feistier nature of her father, Michael McGuire, as evidenced by his role as a union organizer, which lent to his reputation as a rabble rouser Both parents imbued Dolores with the philosophy that one should never give up or quit one’s deeply held beliefs and/or convictions. To this maxim, she held true throughout her life. She never quit any endeavor she entered into. She deemed it important to impart this same imperative to her own children. Another invaluable lesson gleaned by Dolores from her own mother’s hardscrabble upbringing was the importance of family, particularly with respect to children. To this end, Dolores and John served as foster parents to Fred Jameson, with whom she maintained a close kinship with until her death. Dolores’ resolve to never give up manifest uniquely when “Freddy” entered into her family. At that time, Freddy, through no fault of his own, was unable to read. When Freddy was enrolled in the same school as her other children, his teachers adamantly asserted to Dolores that Freddy would never learn to read. True to her nature, Dolores refused to accept this assessment and consequently resolved to do whatever was necessary to teach Freddy to read. This task entailed Dolores spending countless hours instructing Freddy, first in basic phonics and later in

developing rudimentary reading skills and eventually Fred’s fulsome mastery of reading comprehension. To this day, Fred remains a voracious reader, a passion shared mutually with his foster mother Dolores up until her death. This otherwise unremarkable anecdote might serve as an ideal exemplar of Dolores’ indomitable spirit

In addition to Fred, Dolores is survived by her four children: Ann Frodel (Pat), Cathy Skraba (Jim), Pat Cullinane, and Mike Cullinane, as well as four grandchildren: Jacob Van Dlac, Corey Van Dlac (Amanda), Mataya Skraba and John Michael Skraba. Additionally, Dolores was blessed with two great grandchildren: Forrest Van Dlac and Lennox Van Dlac.

In lieu of flowers, remembrance may be made to Dolores’ preferred charities which included:

· Blessed Sacrament Church

· Sound Choice Pro Life Washington

· Priests for Life

Dolores’ legacy of faith, love, and perseverance will live on in all who knew her. 

Please share memories & sign the guestbook, located below.

Arrangements Entrusted to Emmick Family Funeral Home ~ Lake View of Seattle, WA