[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 55 (Thursday, April 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H4045]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          TRIBUTE TO DORIS PIKE, VOLUNTEER AND LAWMAKER'S WIFE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Forbes] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because earlier this week the 
world got just a little bit dimmer with the passing of a wonderful 
woman from Riverhead, Long Island, by the name of Doris Pike.
  Mr. Speaker, many people remember Doris Pike as the very pleasant, 
engaging wife of former Congressman Otis G. Pike, who so ably served 
Long Island in this body from 1961 to 1979.
  But Doris Pike in her own right was a woman of note. She was an 
educator, somebody who devoted over 25 years as a volunteer, teaching 
immigrant students English. For 25 years she took those immigrant 
students, those with various different languages, 14 different 
languages, I believe, and she taught them English at Patchogue-Medford 
High School and later Riverhead High School.
  She was married to a distinguished Member of this body who in his own 
right was extremely popular and had a dynamic and strong personality. 
But Doris Pike herself developed her own persona among the people of 
Long Island. They came to know and love her because of her many acts of 
charity, her volunteer work, her great sense of humor.
  As her husband Otis Pike said, she was a most unpretentious woman. He 
recalled an evening when they were invited to the White House, for 
example, when she wore a beautiful long evening gown and decided that 
with that gown she was going to wear her bedroom slippers. When 
questioned by her husband, she said nobody looks at your feet anyway. 
As the Congressman remembered, in fact, they went to that White House 
affair, and indeed nobody looked at her feet anyway.
  Otis Pike, I join with him and his daughter Lois and his sons Doug 
and Rob, in mourning the passing of this most generous and wonderful 
woman, Doris Pike. She was a long-time trustee of Dowling College, and 
she so believed in the value of education that she set up on her own 
Doris Pike College Fund, in which she attempted each year to fund the 
tuition expense of one student.
  In her office at home, she had a sign that said ``A teacher affects 
eternity. She can never tell where her influence stops.''
  My colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, Doris Pike was a woman of great 
stature, and she in her own way has affected eternity, and we will 
mourn her and we will miss her.

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