Dorothy Shapiro, Founder of Museum, Is Dead at 64

Dorothy Shapiro, co-founder of the Children’s Museum of San Diego and a longtime supporter of the Museum of Contemporary Art, died at her Point Loma home Monday of pancreatic cancer. She was 64.

Services will be held at 3 p.m. today at Temple Beth Israel on 3rd Avenue.

She was remembered Tuesday as a tireless advocate for arts and education--particularly for children--in her native San Diego.

“I only want to say that she was an extraordinarily sensitive, artistic and generous soul, and that she had a very strong aesthetic and a good eye for art,” said Hugh Davies, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, where Mrs. Shapiro served on committees. “She will be sorely missed. It’s very hard for all of us.”

Mrs. Shapiro was born in 1928 and grew up in the Presidio Park area, graduating from San Diego High School. Among other projects, she was the founder and director of Children’s Kaleidoscope, which promoted arts programming for youth. She helped city schools with their programs for gifted children and served on the education committee of the San Diego Zoological Society, her son Thomas said.

She and her husband, Robert, were also active in the Temple Beth Israel congregation, as were her parents.

Her dedication to the Children’s Museum of San Diego, which she helped found in 1983 with five other women, was remembered Tuesday by those who worked with her.

“She really believed in the mission that you had to spark creativity in all children,” said Sandra Arkin, president of the museum’s board of directors and a museum co-founder.

“Dorothy was the type of person who touched your life and never let go, in a very positive way,” Arkin said. “She liked to use the word vision. She pushed and challenged everyone in the museum to make sure what we were doing for the children was extraordinary. I’m sorry that not everyone has the chance to meet her. She was a remarkable woman.”

Arkin said Mrs. Shapiro’s enthusiasm will stay with her.

“It’s a loss to the museum and a personal loss to me, because she was my friend. But whenever I do something, or look at something, I have Dorothy sitting on my shoulder. And her words are always there, making sure that we never do something mediocre. She always tried to find the joy, the pleasure or positive challenges. In that way she touched my own life.”

Though Mrs. Shapiro became ill in March, she had a chance to see the museum’s new theater in July and the Balboa Park site that will become the museum’s new home.

“In December, 1989, when that site became ours, we had a dinner for the six of us, and we sat around toasting the past and the future. It’s going to be very hard to think of that in our new space without Dorothy,” she said.

Besides her husband, Mrs. Shapiro leaves a son, James; daughter-in-law, Sally, and their son, Samuel, in San Francisco; a son, Thomas, and daughter-in-law, Madeleine, in Chicago; and a son, Edward, in Washington, D.C.

The family is requesting that any contributions be sent to the Dorothy Mitchell Shapiro Education Fund, of the Children’s Museum.