STALEY, DORIS LEAR (DAL) 90 - of Ocean City, went home to be with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, on July 11, 2011. Doris was an area resident most of her life. She was a graduate of Ocean City High School. She was a Shore Memorial Hospital volunteer, and active volunteer with the American Red Cross for 50 years, a member of St. Peter's United Methodist Church, a Friend of the Ocean City Library and an active Bridge player for 60 years. She loved to swim laps at the pool and go for long walks as long as she was able.
She was a faithful season ticket-holder to the Ocean City Pops every summer. She also enjoyed attending opera and theatre in New York and Philadelphia. Mrs. Staley was a retired antiques dealer. She had antique shops in the Cherry Hill Mall and Haddonfield, NJ.
She loved to write poetry ever since she was a child. One of her favorite poems was reminiscent of sleeping at the Alden Park Manor Hotel at Fourth Street and the beach, a hotel her father, Robert Lear, built during the Great Depression: "The Ocean is a special thing. It has a happy song to sing, of sun and sand and castles tall, and waves that break and make them small. At night when I lie down to sleep, there is no lullaby quite so sweet as the sound of the sea."
Survived by her daughter, Karen Staley of Atlanta, GA; sons Robert Stone and wife Phyllis, of Ocean City and John D. Staley, Jr. of Charlotte, NC; and sister, Louise Lear-Hastreiter of Atlanta, GA; and niece, Roberta Hastreiter-Heady of Atlanta, GA. Services are private. Arrangements made by the George H. Wimberg Funeral Home of Linwood.
Published in The Press of Atlantic City on July 27, 2011
Bill Kelly Notes:
Mrs. Staley was a good friend of my mother and a good neighbor. Her large rooming house at 816 Wesley was directly across the street from our home at 819 Wesley.
When we first moved to Ocean City in the mid-1960s, Bob and Jay (John) Staley were the first two guys who stopped by to say hello. They had some friends I also got to know wellm including their cousin Lynn Delcorio, who lived in the hugh apartment building at 4th St. and the Boardwalk. Lynn was a scuba diver who once came back with a monster lobster that I wrote a story about for the SandPaper. Lynn moved to Florida where I visited him with Rich McNally on our way to Key West, and he suggested we dive off the reef at Key Largo, which was an awesome experience.
Mrs. Staley's daughter Karen was also a good friend. When we formed CHIP - Citizens for Historic Preservation to try to save the old historic homes from demolition, Karen opposed us at first, but then later on was inspired to research the history of her home. She learned it was once owned by a family that included a Civil War soldier who died at Gettysburgh and became fascinated by the history.
While Jay and later Karen ran the apartments and rooming house, Bob helped his mom with collecting antiques for her Haddonfield and Cherry Hill Mall antiques stores.
Bob had attended Columbia University and played drums. He is now married to Phyllis Turner, a former hostess at the Tuckahoe Inn whose father made many of the floats for the Miss America Parade in his shop off the alley between West and Simpson Avenues.
Billy Mueller, who looked like General Custer with long blond hair and mustache, was a guitarist with Backroads, the local country blues band who played often at Brownies in Bargaintown, and also included Tom and Nancy and Jack Patch. Billy collected Les Paul guitars, and married Barbara Tucker, whose brother Kurt worked with me at Mack & Mancos on the Boardwalk. Kurt enlisted in the Navy and became a nuclear sub Captain.
I'll always be in debt to Billy Mueller for introducing me to Chris Columbo and the Kentucky Avenue music scene in the mid-1970s, as well as blues harpist James Cotton and Hubert Sumlin, guitarist for Howlin' Wolf.
Mrs. Staley was a real pistol. She played bridge with my mother once a week in the back room of the Chatterbox, which is just around the corner, or down the alley from 816.
I remember Mrs. Staley and my mother picking me up at the Philly airport when I returned from one of my frequent jaunts, and Mrs. Staley was driving. She was kind of dizzy so I had to take over the wheel, but she was a good friend and neighbor.
God Bless her and the whole Staley family.
