ST. TAMMANY PARISH, LA. 

Obituary for: KOLB, DOROTHY D 

Submitted by: Louis Lavedan. 

Source: Bagnell & Son Funeral Home, Covington, La.

Died Saturday, May 19, 2012

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KOLB, DOROTHY D 
August 25, 1915 - May 19, 2012 	

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Dorothy Dietrich Kolb died on 19 May 2012 at her daughter Katherine's home in 
Hammond, Louisiana, where she had been living since December 2011.

Dorothy Kolb was born in Borden, Indiana on 25 August 1915 as the daughter of 
William Dietrich and Katherine Whiteside Dietrich. 

Like six of her seven brothers and sisters, she studied at Indiana University; 
she earned her B.A. in 1936 and her M.A. in German literature in 1937 with a 
thesis on the medieval poet Hartmann von Aue. 
Her first teaching job was at Ward Belmont College in Nashville, Tennessee, and 
it was in Nashville that she met Philip Kolb, whom she married in 1941. 
During World War II, while her husband was stationed in Europe, she taught at 
Evansville College in Evansville, Indiana. 
She and her husband moved to Urbana in 1946. She regularly taught English and 
German at the University of Illinois, where her husband became a professor in 
the Department of French. A gifted teacher, she was chosen as the first 
director of the Writing Laboratory at the University in 1968, a job she held 
until her retirement.
An avid reader with an exceptional memory, an enthusiastic walker and traveler, 
an inspired gardener, cook, and hostess, Dorothy Kolb balanced her professional 
and domestic life seemingly without effort. 
Her sympathy, humor and common sense guided her family through a life divided 
between Urbana and Paris, France, and nurtured many friendships in both places. 
Her wisdom and determination helped see to completion her husband’s monumental 
edition of Marcel Proust’s correspondence. 
After his death in 1992 she became a mainstay of the Kolb-Proust Archive that 
she helped create at the University of Illinois Library in 1993.

Dorothy Kolb is survived by her children Katherine Kolb of Hammond, Louisiana; 
Richard Kolb of Beacon, N.Y.; and Jocelyne Kolb and her husband Konrad Kenkel 
of Hanover, N.H.; her sister Julia Dietrich Knuppel of Greencastle, Indiana; 
her grandchildren Anne Reeve of Washington, D.C.; Sylvia Kolb of New York, 
N.Y.; and Jonathan Kolb Kenkel of Hanover, N.H.; and several nieces and 
nephews.

A memorial service will be held at Clark-Lindsey Village on Sunday June 24 at 2 
PM.

The family wishes to express its profound gratitude to Dorothy Kolb’s devoted 
caregivers of the past six months, Burnette Johns, Marie Lloyd, Mary Robertson 
and Dijon Williams, as well as to the staff of Clark-Lindsey Village where she 
lived from 2008 – 2011 and leaves behind many good friends.

Memorial contributions may be made in Dorothy Kolb’s name to the University of 
Illinois Library.

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