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Former DLM president dies at 105
Vera Jane Susannah Mayne, who served as president of Dorothy Lane Market from 1972 to 2005, died Monday, Feb. 28. She was 105.
In the late 1930s, raising four young daughters after the death of her first husband, Frank Pacey, Mrs. Mayne took over and operated her late husband’s wholesale produce company in downtown Dayton, and later operated a retail fruit stand in the Central Market House in downtown Dayton until 1950. In 1942, she married Calvin Mayne, co-founder of Dorothy Lane Market, which had started as a fruit stand in 1948 until the first grocery store was built in Oakwood in 1953.
In 1955, it was Mrs. Mayne’s idea to launch the Good Neighbor Program at Dorothy Lane Market, which over the years has contributed millions of dollars to local non-profit organizations. Today, DLM has three stores — in Oakwood, Washington Twp. and Springboro — employs 700 people and has annual revenues of $75 million, according to the DLM Facebook page.
“She signed 700 paychecks every week, signed about 300 checks to vendors every week, and looked at every bill that we received until she was just about 100 years old,” said Mrs. Mayne’s son Norman Mayne. “She taught me to focus always on quality, and showed me there is no substitute for integrity.”
Calvin Mayne, Mrs. Mayne’s grandson, said his grandmother lived a “full, long life.”
“As the matriarch of our family and the extended ‘DLM family,’ she always had sensible advice, but was never intrusive,” Mayne said. “Her kind qualities were appreciated by all who knew her. She leaves a legacy of kindness, dignity, and character. We were blessed to have had her with us all these years.”
Family will greet friends on Friday, March 4 from 4 to 8 p.m. at Routsong Funeral Home, 2100 E. Stroop Rd., Kettering. Funeral service will be held on Saturday at 10 a.m. at the funeral home. Memorial contributions may be made to the Calvin Mayne Scholarship, c/o Judson University, 1151 N. State St., Elgin, IL 60123 or Grace College and Seminary, 200 Seminary Drive, Winona Lake, IN 46590.
Click here to view the obituary for Vera Jane Susannah Mayne.
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