Dortha Selby Mershon

Portsmouth, RI - Dortha Selby Mershon, 80, of 7 Nina Road, Portsmouth, RI, died Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at Newport Hospital, Newport, RI. She was the wife since 1996 of William R. Mershon, LCDR, USN, Ret, and Professor Emeritus at Roger Williams University. Born in Des Moines, IA on September 6, 1926, she was the daughter of the late Franklin Edmund Selby and Grace Durell Selby.Mrs. Mershon attended Drake College in Des Moines, Iowa. After college she worked as a stewardess for American Airlines, then worked with her husband?s engineering consultant firm in Rumford, MA. She was the founder of the East Providence Land Trust which enabled the community to protect many conservation areas from development and was instrumental in planting 10, 000 trees. In 1972 she and her husband sold their home in Rumford and moved aboard their 42 foot trawler ?SHASTA? cruising to Florida and back via the Inland Waterway eight times and also circumnavigated the eastern half of the United States by way of Nova Scotia, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. After the death of her husband Louis Guenther in 1993 she continued to operate ?SHASTA? in local waters. Upon her second marriage in 1996 she took up windsurfing and after obtaining her PADI SCUBA diving certification did five wall dives to 100 feet in the Grand Caymans. Mrs. Mershon loved boating on SHASTA and for the last ten years the trawler ?SECOND LOVE? with her second husband. She was a member of the Red Hat Society where she was known as Dive Princess, the Newport Yacht Club where she ran the auction for many years for the benefit of the Junior Program, a member of the Coddington Point Windsurfing Association, the Redwood Library where she loved reading Shakespeare?s plays with her friends, and the Nantucket Basket Weaving group, where she made many baskets for her family and friends. She also belonged to four book reading groups. Besides her husband she is survived by her children, Selby Minner and her husband D. C. Minner of Oklahoma, Jean Johnson Stuhlman and her husband Rev. Robert Stuhlmann of Burlington, VT and Stratford, CT, Louis Guenther of Oklahoma, Hilary Conley and her husband Ron of Winston-Salem, NC, Diane Langdon of Warwick, RI, Van Thomas Langdon and his wife Jeri of Cumming, GA and Victor Michael Langdon of Thailand, and her grandchildren, Leighton Johnson, Adrian Guenther, Damien Guenther, Emily Johnson, Nicholas Guenther, John Langdon and Laurie Lee Langdon.A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, April 21, 2007, at 2 PM, at the Newport Yacht Club, Newport. Donations in her memory may be made to the Newport Yacht Club Endowment Fund, Junior Program, 110 Long Wharf, Newport, RI 02840.