Michael Bushnell
Publisher

The Northeast News has learned that longtime Kansas City historian, author, and historic preservation advocate Dory DeAngelo passed away early this morning.

Born in 1932, DeAngelo was raised on Windsor Avenue. She was a staple in the Kansas City history community for decades and was active in a number of preservation efforts, including the Liberty Memorial prior to its multi-million dollar renovation that was completed in 2000.

DeAngelo also had a number of local history books to her credit including “Voices Across Time: Profiles of Kansas City’s Early Residents,” “Passages Through Time: Stories about Kansas City, Missouri and its Northeast Neighborhood,” “What About Kansas City: A Historical Handbook” and “Kansas City Style: a Social and Cultural History of Kansas City as Seen Through its Lost Architecture,” co-written with Jane Flynn and funded by the Law Offices of Shook, Hardy & Bacon.

DeAngelo was also tapped by the Kauffman Foundation to pen the biography of former Kansas City Royals Owner and Marion Laboratory Founder Ewing Kauffman. That book planted the seed for a feature-length documentary film on the life of Ewing Kauffman. The work is used often by the Kauffman Foundation to curate an online digital museum and an exhibit on display at the Foundation headquarters on Brush Creek.

Closer to her Northeast roots, DeAngelo penned a history column in The Northeast World, a community newspaper published by Jim Murray between 1986 and 1988. The Northeast News was honored to gift a number of Northeast World editions to the Missouri Valley Room of the Kansas City Public Library, where they may be referenced by the public.

Dory relayed a story to the News Dog at the dedication of the Richardson-Graham Bridge on Gladstone Boulevard in 2002. “Every time an old person dies, a library closes.” Sadly, in recent years she battled Alzheimer’s and dementia, and the world has literally lost a huge library of historical facts, dates and significant documentation of the city’s rich patchwork of history. DeAngelo was 88 years old.