Fredric Sr. stopped ranching and moved to Tucson where he resumed his career as an architect. Around 1936, she moved to Canelo where she took on an old adobe next to an oasis marsh (cienega) in the O'Donnell basin between the Huachuca and Patagonia mountains. It had been known as the O'Donnell place in the 1880s and prior to that, when it was a two room fortress, as Mr. Whitehead's.

 She renovated it, with considerable help from Alex Gonzales, described by her grand-daughter as Dorothy's 'right hand man' (who is also buried at Black Oak), and with input from her husband and from her son Fredric Jr. it became her life's obsession. She had a few cows, a horse or two, and chickens, dogs,and cats. There was a shed in back to keep things cool in summer and cold in winter. Her grandkids would help press apples into cider and quince into membrillo, making the trip from Tucson to Canelo usually by car and sometimes by an old plane that belonged to Fredric Jr. whose daughter recalls having the job of throwing rocks off the landing strip.

 When she died the house was left to her family, and it was purchased from the family in 1969 by the Nature Conservancy; it became the Canelo Hills Cienega Reserve, and the area was designated as a National Natural Landmark in December 1974.

 One local resident remembers Dorothy as a lovely lady with her long hair braided and wrapped round and round her head in a coronet. Dorothy is the second in her family to be buried at Black Oak after her daughter Louise Knipe 'Winty' Thomas.

Contributed by her granddaughter Mary Knipe Verplank and written by Corbin Smith

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SCS 9/24/2024