Dorothy R. Daly

Dorothy Roper Daly, age 102, died on May 24, 2025. Interment will be at Arlington National Cemetery alongside her husband, Air Force officer, Arnold J. Daly and her son, William Lance Daly. Services are yet to be decided. 

Dorothy Clare Roper Daly was born on September 25, 1922, in Casper, Wyoming, the first of four daughters, to Lance and Vena (Haworth) Roper. She was born in Dr. Lathrop’s Lying-In Hospital, and her father, a ranchman, tied his horse to a tree outside the window of her mother’s room when he came to visit. 

Along with her sisters, she grew up on a cattle ranch, the Oilcan, on Dry Creek in the Sweetwater country of Wyoming, some four miles from Independence Rock on the Oregon Trail. She and her sisters attended school on the ranch in a two-room frame building – one room of which housed the teacher who boarded with the family. 

Dorothy moved in from the ranch and attended Natrona County High School in Casper, Wyoming, where she lived with her aunt and uncle, Barbara and Charles Rose. Graduating in 1938, at age 15, as valedictorian of her class, she attended Cottey College in Missouri for one year and then came home to the University of Wyoming, where she became a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. In 1942, at age 19, she graduated cum laude, first in her class, with what was at that time the highest GPA ever achieved by a University of Wyoming graduate, with a degree in Economics and minors in French and history. She was one of two juniors at UW to be elected to Phi Beta Kappa, she twice received Honor Books in Economics, Sociology and Foreign Languages, she was a member of Theta Alpha Phi, national dramatics honorary, and a member and president of Phi Sigma Iota, a national language honorary. 

Despite her major, one of her proudest achievements was winning the university Best Actor Cap for her role as Emily in Our Town. She was also extremely honored to be named an Outstanding Alumni of the University of Wyoming’s College of Arts & Sciences in 1996. Another of her proudest moments came years later when she was tapped for the University of Wyoming’s chapter of Mortar Board along with her great niece, Kara Rechard Shackelford. 

Dorothy ventured to Washington D.C. in the fall of 1942 as a junior economics analyst in the United States Treasury Department, in the Division of Research and Statistics. The division was tasked with finding the best ways of borrowing money and issuing public debt securities instrumental to the funding of World War II. Her assignments included researching how Alexander Hamilton financed our young nation for Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, preparing studies on war financing in other countries, developing and updating thirty charts on government securities, and helping to prepare analyses and recommendations for use by the Secretary in discussing government fiscal policy with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Dorothy and her colleagues felt by raising funds to fight the war at that time they were personally, “somehow providing the means by which our country was helping to conquer evil.” 

In 1947, she married Arnold J. Daly, also from Casper, and a much-decorated officer, who at the time flew for Special Air Missions out of Bolling Air Field. When Arnold was transferred to the Alaskan Air Command in 1951, Dorothy left her job to accompany him. Their first two children, Pat and Bill, were born in Anchorage, and their son Larry, was born at the Naval Academy hospital in Annapolis. In the ensuing years she and her husband were stationed at bases throughout the United States and Europe. 

During this period, she volunteered for various organizations. While overseas she served on the Community Relations Council, as well as President of the German-American Club, President of the Military Council of Church Women, and President of the Officer’s Wives Club. She also served as editor of base newspapers, volunteered as the head of base social services and was secretary to the school board of her children’s school. 

Her husband retired in 1968 and became a market research executive at Page Avjet, and Dorothy then returned to government service in the Treasury Department. She was named an Assistant Market Analysis Officer in the Office of Planning and Research of the United States Savings Bonds Division in May 1969. She rose to become the Market Analysis Officer and from September 1973 to February 1976 ran the office that developed and coordinated market analysis programs upon which administrative decisions for the Savings Bonds Division were based. Dorothy was made head of the Market Analysis Section in the renamed Office of Planning and Market Research in 1976. Within both positions, she directed the office in researching economic conditions which might have a bearing on the sale of U.S. Savings Bonds. Special studies included the effects of inflation on savings bond holders, and the tax-exempt feature of savings bonds. These and other subjects were summarized in a monthly newsletter which was used by Treasury and other government officials and by banks.

In 1972, as a result of the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, which extended the EEO Act of 1964 to cover government employees, she assumed a second collateral job as Federal Women’s Program Manager at Savings Bonds. She was elected to chair a Treasury-wide committee of women selected from all twelve Treasury bureaus that prepared a model study on the impact on women of Treasury programs in taxation, banking, public finance, and law enforcement, which was named best of all U.S. Government department submissions to the International Women’s Year Commission in 1976. 

Dorothy was appointed the Treasury Department’s Federal Women’s Program Manager in February 1979. She represented Treasury at White House meetings concerning the status of women. She provided leadership, training, and direction for the twelve Treasury bureaus and their Federal Women’s Program Managers. Among her accomplishments was a training and development program for recommendations for use by the women, recognized as outstanding by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. OPM used it as a model for setting up its government-wide Executive Leadership Program to move qualified female clerical employees into career ladders that would help them advance to professional positions. In response to a request from the Carter Administration’s President’s Advisory Committee on Women, chaired by Lynda Johnson Robb, Dorothy developed and directed a study which highlighted areas of progress for Treasury women and showed the areas where serious under-representation continued to exist. She also directed and coordinated twenty-four bureau representatives from the legal and administrative staffs of the twelve Treasury bureaus in an extensive review for the President’s Task Force on Sex Discrimination to discover if laws, regulations, directives, and orders directly or inadvertently discriminated against minorities and women. The report made recommendations to remove or amend the offending public regulation or law and was cited as a model for all other agencies to follow. During the Reagan Administration, Dorothy provided current information on the effects of tax and economic policy on working women and families to Bay Buchanan, Treasurer of the United States, who served on the President’s Task Force on Legal Equity, chaired by Vice President George Bush. 

With the Federal Women’s Program Manager at the Department of Justice, she advised, obtained financial support, and coordinated training activities for the Interagency Task Force on Women in Federal Law Enforcement (now Women in Federal Law Enforcement or WIFLE). She established the Treasury Women’s Network and initiated noontime programs and seminars to aid women at all levels to enhance their career opportunities. Dorothy also served on the National Board of Federally Employed Women (FEW). 

Dorothy was asked to adjudicate EEO issues, therefore, she received an M.A. in Legal Studies from Antioch in 1986 and completed her Treasury years as a Human Resources Manager in the Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, Departmental Offices. When she retired from Treasury, she was awarded the Albert Gallatin Award for long and exemplary Treasury Service. Until Saturday, she was believed to be the last living civil servant to have worked for Secretary Morgenthau. 

She was a member of the Treasury Historical Association and served on the Board of Directors and she also became the first Oral History Chair for the Treasury. Dorothy believed that oral histories would enliven the official records and, fittingly, her personal history as a civil servant was the first to be uploaded to the U.S. Treasury Historical Associations website. 

She was a member of Toastmaster’s International and became a Distinguished Toastmaster, the highest rank of the organization, while she was actively involved with National Capital District 27, one of the largest in the world. She was also a member of the National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling and volunteered her time to encourage others to tell their own stories and share their lives to contribute to our collective memory. 

She was a life-long Democrat and loved to tell people that she cast her first vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, she supported and lauded those members of both parties who recognized that as representatives of the government they were responsible for seeing that all those who live in the United States are treated equally, with justice and fairness for all. 

After the death of her husband, Dorothy moved to Scottsbluff to be close to her family where she continued to be actively engaged in her community. She belonged to the Multi-Cultural Book Club, served as President of NARFE, belonged to the Scottsbluff County Democratic Committee, and was a member of St. Agnes Church where she served on the financial council. She remained an avid reader, bridge player and loved to do crossword puzzles. 

Dorothy was preceded in death by her husband of almost 58 years, Arnold J. “Tim” Daly; sons, William Lance Daly and Lawrence Charles Daly; parents, Lance and Vena Roper; three sisters and their husbands, Barbara (Todd) Jordan, Mary Lou (Paul) Rechard, and Nancy Lee (Benjamin “Bun”) Grieve; and niece, Cyd Grieve. Survivors include her daughter and son-in-law, Pat Daly Laucomer and David Laucomer; grandson, Chris Laucomer, wife Cary, and their children Brady, Marly and Jordy and granddaughter, Carlye Laucomer Johnson, husband Chad, and their children Quincey and Sullivan, all of Sioux County; niece and nephews, Karen (Mike) Rechard Davis, Rob (Pat) Rechard, and Glenn Grieve and their children Ryan, Danny, Kara, Kyle, Alexis and Matthew. She also leaves behind many dear friends and family including Kathy Demas Vegh and Michael and Maureen Scott. Along with her husband, she supported numerous charities throughout her life which included the Panhandle Humane Society, St. Agnes 100 Club, Nebraska Public Television, the University of Wyoming Mary Lou Rechard Memorial Scholarship, the Carter Center, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, the Smithsonian and various charities that help children. If you choose to honor Dorothy with a memorial, please give to the charity of your choice.

Dorothy was preceded in death by her husband of almost 58 years, Arnold J. “Tim” Daly; sons, William Lance Daly and Lawrence Charles Daly; parents, Lance and Vena Roper; three sisters and their husbands, Barbara (Todd) Jordan, Mary Lou (Paul) Rechard, and Nancy Lee (Benjamin “Bun”) Grieve; and niece, Cyd Grieve.

Survivors include her daughter and son-in-law, Pat Daly Laucomer and David Laucomer; grandson, Chris Laucomer, wife Cary, and their children Brady, Marly and Jordy and granddaughter, Carlye Laucomer Johnson, husband Chad, and their children Quincey and Sullivan, all of Sioux County; niece and nephews, Karen (Mike) Rechard Davis, Rob (Pat) Rechard, and Glenn Grieve and their children Ryan, Danny, Kara, Kyle, Alexis and Matthew. She also leaves behind many dear friends and family including Kathy Demas Vegh and Michael and Maureen Scott.

Along with her husband, she supported numerous charities throughout her life which included the Panhandle Humane Society, St. Agnes 100 Club, Nebraska Public Television, the University of Wyoming Mary Lou Rechard Memorial Scholarship, the Carter Center, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, the Smithsonian and various charities that help children. If you choose to honor Dorothy with a memorial, please give to the charity of your choice.