Obituary of David Dodican Porter

David Dodican Porter
July 28, 1925- November 25, 2007

A funeral Mass for David Dodican Porter has been celebrated on Thursday, November 29th at St. John Fisher Catholic Church in Portland Oregon.

David Dodican Porter was born at home in Pickens, South Carolina on July 28, 1925 to Fletcher Schley Porter and Florence Dodican. The Porter clan were longtime settlers in the Carolina Upcountry and David's branch of the family resided in Pickens. In the challenging economic times of the late Twenties, F.S. Porter took his family north to New Jersey to work for Investors Diversified Services, a new company pledged to help people build for their retirement. Shortly, the company offered FS Porter the opportunity to “go west” and open new territories in the Pacific NW and Canada. So it was that David was bundled up with his brother Pete and his mom and dad for an exodus on their own Oregon Trail. The journey west was a wonderful adventure. However, crossing into Oregon brought sandstorms, locusts, and a falling tree that nearly crushed their car. Dave thought his mother almost dug in her heels and turned back at that moment.

David Porter's arrival in Portland changed his life. The family settled in Eastmoreland and Dave started school at nearby Duniway grade school. From there he went to the newly opened Central Catholic High School where he thrived and graduated with the first class of seniors in 1943. An outstanding scholar, he was also a solid athlete, lettering in football and basketball three years. Dave's commitment to his Faith began to shine in these years and he was honored with the Holy Spirit Award. Following high school, he entered the Navy under the V5 program which was training replacement pilots as fast as possible for the war. His training took place at various sites across the country, but the dropping of the atomic bomb and Japan's surrender took place just before he would have shipped out. Returning to Portland, Dave enrolled at the University of Portland and took up the study of physics. He also considered art as a career and though he decided against that, his artistic efforts , from doodles on the back of a napkin to drawings and small paintings, continued to embellish his life. Work was an anchor of Dave's life when school wasn't in session, and he had experiences as varied as being on fire crew, working at the gasworks, and at Franz Bakery.

While at university, he met Marylhurst student Geraldine Byrne at a dance. Their friendship and love spanned the rest of their lives. Dave proposed to Gerry at Redmond's on the Hill Restaurant on July 18th 1948. Gerry's response was “when”, and they set off on a lifelong adventure. They were married at St. John's Catholic Church in Milwaukie on Sept. 4, 1948.

Dave began his career as a science teacher soon after. Teaching at Beaverton High School first, he later returned to Central Catholic, his alma mater, and then to Washington High School in Portland. The bulk of his teaching career, though, was at Portland Community College where he took students through a variety of science curricula: physics, physical science, chemistry, meteorology, geology and astronomy. David's passionate interest in science and his boundless curiousity about the world were hallmarks of his character in and out of the classroom. His children all share the experience of having become spontaneous “students” in the “classroom” of Dave Porter as he pulled the family car to the side of the road to remark on a geological or cloud formation. During his years of high school teaching, he was involved in creating a teaching program called the Chemical Bond Approach which integrated elements of the various scientific disciplines. In the mid-Fifties, he enlisted as a science teacher in the Atoms for Peace Program which trained American Science teachers to help teach physics and atomic energy principles to science teachers in other parts of the world. To get the training, he had to go to the Oakridge Institute in Tennessee, and so he packed his family into the station wagon and drove cross country for the summer. During the Sixties, he spent stints in Yugoslavia and Portugal as part of that program, making lifelong friends. As a teacher with a growing, young family, Dave worked double duty to make ends meet. During the summers, he took teaching and continuing education stints which meant the family followed him to places like Corvallis and Seattle for weeks. He also taught night classes which meant his free time was limited. Despite that, Dave took an intense interest in his children and family's life. He took his two oldest sons to Council Crest in the middle of the night to see Sputnik go overhead, helped with science projects, shot hoops and gave boxing lessons. Camping trips, long hikes, and Sunday drives were staples as were frequent trips to the local swimming pool. Teaching all those classes meant correcting lots of student papers, and Dave was a legend in his southwest Portland neighborhood coffeeshops where he'd nurse coffee and a donut while grading. His interest in astronomy grew as the years passed and he also took groups of students to Goldendale to look at the stars through the telescopes there and also held class with telescopes on the roof of the classroom building at PCC. When he retired, he was honored in 1986 for a quarter century of teaching at PCC. He was also honored as an “Outstandiing Science Teacher “ by OMSI.

Dave Porter's entire life was illuminated by the strength of his Catholic faith. He never stopped challenging himself and those around him to understand and live a Christian life more fully. And his life reflected his absolute commitment. He taught his children not to give a panhandler money but to buy him lunch. He led by his example. Among other places, he delivered food to Blanchet House, fed folks at St. Francis Soup Kitchen, and worked teaching English to migrant workers. Dave and Gerry were involved in the Christian Family Movement, meeting with other couples to find ways to live their Faith. They sponsored refugees and helped promote food programs in the Sixties. David Porter believed that the right to life was the central issue facing the world. He was involved as a state President of Right to Life and a national delegate to the Right to Life conventions and campaigned hard for pro-life people and causes. While he was staunchly anti-abortion, his belief went far beyond that. Dave opposed capital punishment and believed that the right to life also required us to work to support the needs of the living as well.

David was a Renaissance man. He was fascinated by hundreds of subjects and interested in people and ideas. He had little patience for materialism or fashion. Well before recycling became a cause, he urged his family to reduce, reuse and consume only what was needed. He was a man of particular tastes. He loved dark chocolate and would not eat anything that resembled a vegetable. He was fond of tomato soup thick with cheddar cheese. He was careless of his appearance ( a trait he had in common with Einstein). He believed intensely in fixing something rather than throwing it away, and was always tinkering with simple household helper devices. He demanded as much intellectual rigour from himself as from others. In the 90s he began writing his memoirs. The title, aptly, was “Going Upstream” as he saw himself as swimming against the tide of popular culture. He had finished the first volume in some six years. Faced with a serious illness at the end of the millenium, his family were convinced that his need to finish the second volume carried him back to health. At the time of his death, he was writing a long-considered work called “Living Catholic” which undertook to discuss the major moral challenges which he felt most people, including Catholics, were not facing honestly. He and Gerry had the opportunity to travel to Ireland and to the eastern US and Canada in pursuit of family history and he enjoyed both the pursuit and the trips immensely. Dave's sense of humor was legendary and dry. His choice of words rarely failed to amuse.

David Porter is survived by his wife of 59 years, Gerry, and ten children. David Michael (Mary), James Nicholas (Laura), Susan Marie (Steve), Mary Elizabeth (Jess), Brian Joseph (Donna), Gregory John (Cindy), Bruce Gerard, Madonna Katherine (Tom), Maureen Theresa (Philip), Mark Christopher (Jo),. Twenty-four grandchildren and eight great grandchildren survive him as well.

Dave closed the first volume of his memoirs with a short chapter called "How Lucky Can I Be?". It recounted his wonder that he was here in the only time and place on the planet Earth when he could have a life expectancy over 70 years, medical and dental care for major health problems, residency in the USA with its great concepts of liberty and justice, food and a nice home, the ability to travel both locally and planetarily, and a lifelong companion of beauty and intellect as well as offspring who all survived and had offspring, and finally his Faith as well as the freedom to practice it. He marked himself among the luckiest humans ever.