Dorette’s family: Eric, Kevin, Shelby, Kim, Annette, Cameron, and Kyrmet (left to right).
There will be a small celebration of Dorrette Jackson’s life held on the Ocean Beach pier on July 9th at 6:30 PM open to any who wish to attend and tell a story or simply share in the moment, hope you can join us. For more information call Eric Jackson @ 619-520-9403
Dorette passed peacefully at her home in Oregon on July 9th 2020, surrounded by friends and family on a beautiful summer day. She is survived by her four children Eric and his wife Chrissy, Kim, Annette and Kyrmet and her grandchildren Kevin, Shelby and Cameron and step-grandchildren Rory and Elena.
Edited from a tribute:
It’s safe to say that without Dorette Jackson, Ocean Beach would not look the way it does today nor would many of the things we have come to know as the essence of Ocean Beach have come to pass including the Beacon newspaper which she helped to found in 1982.
As part of that effort we now have our annual Chili Cook-off and fireworks fundraiser, our zany Christmas parade, the farmers market and many other OB institutions. She did all of this in the spirit of service that was uniquely Dorette, no fanfare, just hard work and perseverance.
Always drawn to the artists, the misfits and the adventurous she found a true home in Ocean Beach and embraced the bohemian lifestyle that has always been a part of OB. The French call it “joie de vie” and Dorette shared it with everyone she touched.
Dorette finally retired from public life in 1988 and after a two year “vacation” in Belize where she volunteered as a teacher in the small town of Placentia she traveled north, accompanied by her youngest son Kyrmet and settled down in Grants Pass Oregon where she focused on gardening, writing and volunteering at a local bookstore.
Before leaving she placed a family tile on Newport Avneue in front of the OB hotel during one of many beautifications.
She published three books during her retirement: Such as it was about growing up in Nazi occupied France and It took a village about her early years in OB and Along the way, an autobiography which will be published posthumously with help from Beacon volunteer Jeffery J. Strane sometime in 2021.
We hope to have all of these available on Amazon or some other source this year.
If nothing else is said about her but that “she made the world a better place” that would be enough of an epitaph but it would not be nearly enough to tell the whole story of all the lives she touched during her time on earth.
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I’ll always be grateful to Dorrette for letting a couple of crazy college kids buy out her newspaper and bookshop. My time in OB affected the rest of my life and those were some of the best times of my life.