Dolores Todd

Sullwold

Dolores Todd Sullwold, an avid gardener and painter and award-winning garden columnist for The Blade, died Tuesday. She was 88.
A love of, and knack for, gardening and painting was passed down to Mrs. Sullwold by her mother, Violet L. Todd, but she developed her talents as a writer on her own.
Born in Hamilton, Ohio, Mrs. Sullwold attended Grandview Heights High School and went to journalism school at The Ohio State University, where she was a member of the field hockey and synchronized swimming teams and of Alpha Delta Pi sorority.
Mrs. Sullwold began her newspaper career as a "copy girl" at the Columbus Citizen. At Ohio State, the sports editor of the school newspaper, The Ohio State Lantern, offered her a column on women's sports – which he called, "Sports Curves." She accepted the offer, wrote the column, and later married the sports editor, Chester Sullwold, who later became executive sports editor of The Blade.
Mrs. Sullwold joined the "women's department" at The Blade in 1950 and, after leaving full-time work to raise her family, began writing the garden column in the mid-1960's. She reported not only on tried-and-true but also on new-and-unusual techniques being used by local gardeners – of both genders. The Central Great Lakes Region of the Mens Garden Clubs of America honored her with a horticultural journalism award in 1973.
Later, Mrs. Sullwold did stints in public relations at the Medical College of Ohio and for the Toledo firm of Flournoy & Gibbs.
After she came to Toledo, Mrs. Sullwold studied painting with well-known local artist William Matthews. At first, she concentrated on oil paintings, primarily landscapes, and then branched into watercolors, gouache, and colored pencils.
Later, she became a regular at the Toledo Artists Club, where she took up painting "en plein air." Her family arranged for a sassafras tree to be planted outside the Club's gallery at the Toledo Botanical Gardens in honor of her 80th birthday.
In addition to gardening and painting, Mrs. Sullwold loved to play the piano, and she gave lessons to neighbor children.
Mrs. Sullwold joined St. Paul's Lutheran Church when she came to Toledo and later served on the music and art, social concerns, and stewardship committees and as a trustee.
Mrs. Sullwold is survived by her husband of 66 years; her children (Robert, Suzanne Grossmann, and Katherine Moschetti); five grand-children (Gretchen Sutherland, Frederick William Grossmann IV, Demetria Moschetti, Anthony Moschetti, and Nicholas Moschetti), and a great-granddaughter, Nellie Todd Sutherland, who was born in October.
The family will receive friends at the Foth-Dorfmeyer Mortuary, 3815 W. Sylvania Ave., at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 30, with services to follow at 1 p.m. Interment Toledo Memorial Park.