After Dorothy Van Dyck lost her husband in 1999, her volunteer work feeding Denton’s needy gave her a reason to wake up each morning.

DRC/Gary Payne

Elva Seybold and Dorothy Van Dyck, center, talk during a reception honoring Van Dyck at the Denton Community Food Center on Feb. 23. Van Dyck announced her resignation as chairwoman of the center last October and is serving as a board member until her term expires this fall.

Over the next decade, she poured her time and energy into her position as a board member and, later, chairwoman of the Denton Community Food Center, an all-volunteer emergency food center on West Sycamore Street.

Not content to merely attend board meetings, Van Dyck frequented the center, handing out food, interviewing clients and encouraging other volunteers. Planning and other administrative duties also kept her busy on the computer when she returned home.

Though unpaid, the position — at least the way she performed it — consumed the time and energy of a full-time job.

The hard-driving style finally caught up with her.

“The last six months, I hadn’t particularly cared to get up” in the mornings, she said.

Yard work and home improvements were neglected, and she found little time for recreation. Van Dyck, 79, realized she spent too much time on the job, but she didn’t know how not to.

“I didn’t need to put so much time on it, but being who I am, yes I did need to,” she said. “I wanted to be able to always be on top of what’s going on.”

Today, Van Dyck is slowly letting go of the center.

She announced her resignation as chairwoman last October.

Two months later, she presided over her last board meeting. Her final term as a board member expires this fall.

She still volunteers at the center when clients come in on weekday afternoons, but not as often.

The reality is one Linda Brady doesn’t want to face.

“We’re not ready to give her up,” said Brady, a food center volunteer since 2001.

Laurie Hammett, a volunteer since 1997, said Van Dyck brought a more hands-on style to the job than previous directors. She described Van Dyck as a quiet and humble leader who struggled to delegate responsibilities.

Hammett attributed Van Dyck’s approach to her temperament.

“It’s in her nature to be community service-minded,” she said.

Van Dyck was born in 1929 in Clay Center, Neb., into a family that expected volunteerism. Her father, Irving Gartrell, was the only doctor for miles, and she remembers accompanying him on house calls, visiting with patients’ children or reading books to them.

She left her rural home at age 18 to attend the University of Nebraska and earned a music degree in 1950 from Nebraska Wesleyan University.

She quickly learned that playing piano wasn’t the easiest way to earn a living.

“I began to realize … this is really stupid,” she said. “And then my interest had always been, through my dad, in people. So I switched to the counseling psychology.”

She earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology from the University of Nebraska in 1952 and spent the next years working as a counselor and psychometrist, someone who administers psychological tests.

In 1950, she met Harry Van Dyck, a Mennonite and conscientious objector during World War II. His pacifism aligned with her own beliefs about violence, formed by the teachings of Jesus, she said.

They married a year later.

Her beliefs and dedication to causes would continue to guide her decisions in the decades that followed — from her work as a sex educator and counselor for Planned Parenthood, to her involvement with Democratic Party elections.

She served as Denton County campaign chairwoman for the 1972 and 1974 gubernatorial campaigns of Frances Farenthold. Van Dyck and her husband, a sociology professor, had moved to Denton in 1958 for his work.

In 1977, Van Dyck was featured in Texas Women in Politics, a book whose authors included Sarah Weddington, the winning attorney in the landmark Roe vs. Wade abortion case.

Van Dyck left her job at Planned Parenthood in 1980.

“I burned out there in seven years too,” she said. “I think it’s really interesting. I only seem to hold on for about seven years, and then it’s time to renew.”

On a recent morning, Van Dyck sat in an office at the food center, pondering her future.

Many volunteers there moved to Denton to be near their children, but she has no family here.

Her eldest son, Charles, was born with severe mental and physical handicaps and died at Denton State School at the age of 32.

Her other son, Christopher, a lawyer, lives in Carson City, Nev.

Although she loves the food center and its volunteers, Van Dyck dreams of leaving Texas to join her son and three grandchildren in Nevada.

“It’s just a matter of time, and that’s part of this retirement, because it’s going to take me time to get things ready to move,” she said. “So I really did need to start thinking about my future and not the future of the food center.

“And it’s in good hands.”

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com  .