She was born Doris Woodruff Gould on April 20, 1929, in Bayonne, NJ, to Dr. J. Howard and Mabel B. Gould. Her father was a family doctor, and her mother trained as a teacher. The family later moved to Ridgewood, New Jersey.
As a young girl, Doris loved attending school and spending summers on her grandmother’s farm in Watertown, CT. She graduated from Ridgewood High School in 1946, where she was president of the Junior Red Cross chapter during World War II, and then enrolled in Middlebury College. She lived in Le Château, the French language house; studied English literature; became a lifelong member of the Mountain Club; and co-chaired the Winter Carnival. In meetings with college leadership, she advocated for more racial diversity among the student body. She wrote her thesis on Henry David Thoreau in French and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She graduated in 1950.
Doris went on to earn a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She taught in Brookline, MA and Derry, NH. In 1953, she boarded a ship in Quebec bound for Europe and bicycled through England, France, and the Netherlands while staying in hostels. At a dance in Cambridge, MA, she met Alex Malaspina, a young Greek immigrant, who was studying at MIT. They married in 1954 and moved to Brooklyn, NY. She took Greek language courses at Columbia University, as she started a family.
While raising her four children in Westport, CT, Doris volunteered in the school library and as a reading tutor for low-income students in Bridgeport. A lifelong learner, she took courses in subjects as diverse as art history and computers and later owned one of the first Apple computers.
The family moved to Atlanta, GA in 1972. She taught fifth-grade language arts at The Westminster Schools for 20 years, where she was much beloved by her students. Doris was named Teacher of the Year, winning an educational trip to Australia and New Zealand; there she met with teachers and students and learned about innovative methods of reading instruction.
After retiring, Doris kept busy with a variety of activities – visiting and hosting her children and grandchildren, volunteering for a reading program at a juvenile detention center in Atlanta, reading Russian novels, completing New York Times crossword puzzles, and playing Anagrams, Scrabble, and Boggle with her family. She and Alex traveled widely, including to China, Egypt, Patagonia, Costa Rica, Vancouver Island, and Hawaii, and she especially enjoyed their many trips to Greece. She loved to swim in the ocean, take walks and hikes, birdwatch, grow flowers, recite poetry, and sing her favorite songs from memory.
Doris was predeceased by her son, Spiros (Kimberly Malaspina), her parents, and her four siblings. She is survived by her beloved husband Alex; daughter Ann (Robert Harold); sons Paul and Mark (Aman D’Mello); six grandchildren Sam Harold, Nicholas Harold, Alex Malaspina, Lily Lima (Mario Lima), Sofia Malaspina, and Deven Malaspina; as well as eight nieces and nephews.
A funeral will take place at 10:00 AM on Monday, November 13, 2023, at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Atlanta. Internment will take place at a later date in George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus, NJ.
