Obituary:

Walter “Fudge” Autry Dotherow, 78, husband of Sara Clement Dotherow, died on Tuesday January 28, 2020 in Greenville, SC. He was born in Inman, SC on February 24, 1941 to the late Walter “Bo” Autry and Edna Wofford Dotherow. Walt attended Chapman High and Clemson University, where he played football under coach Frank Howard with an athletic scholarship. He graduated in 1964 with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and worked for J.E. Sirrine and several other engineering companies in Greenville for over 40 years. In addition to his family, pets, football and travel, Fudge loved God.  He attended several churches over the years including Hampton Heights, Daybreak and most recently Triune Mercy. He had served as a deacon, Sunday school teacher, basketball coach, and always enjoyed singing in the church choirs. He is known for his eccentric wit, practical ingenuity and compassion – for people and animals. Survivors including his wife, are: son Tony Dotherow and daughter Melanie Dotherow McField; grandchildren Emily Dotherow, Maxwell and Hali McField and Jean Knight; brothers, Don Dotherow and wife, Elaine, and Ray Dotherow and wife, Susan; one sister, Carol Ramey; and numerous nieces and nephews. He is predeceased by his sister Ann Dotherow Lim. A service will be held at Overbrook Baptist Church, Greenville, SC on Saturday February 1 at 11am; with receiving of friends at 10am. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Greenville Animal Care. https://www.greenvillecounty.org/acs/Donate.aspx

Melanie's Welcome: 

Good morning and welcome to you all. I’m Fudge’s daughter, Melanie, and on behalf of the family I want to thank you all for coming today to remember our wonderful, sincere and quirky, Walt Dotherow. His death on Tuesday – stemming from a cardiac arrest on Friday night, was unexpected and far too soon. Yet I know in my heart it was just the type of exit he wanted - unannounced, without fanfare, quick and most importantly not involving any long hospitalization or crippling infirmity. It was just too soon – but he was 78. Now I cant help but hear dad say “actually …..that’s not quite right”. In honor of dad’s appreciation to the utmost precision in all things large and small, I would like to point out that his age was actually 78 and 11/12ths, just exceeding the national average this year. But “still… that’s not quite right” he would have said after doing more ‘ciphering” and checking those statistics. I’m sure he would say ‘well actually if you account for me being male and having type I diabetes I actually beat the life expectancy by a decade”.  Yes dad, you beat it by 10 years. You did good, lived well and we are grateful. Fudge was a straightforward and steadfast man who loved God, his family, friends and football. We appreciate you all coming to share this celebration of his life and collective sorrow in his death because we will miss him. But as he liked to say …” It’ll be alright”.  And if something happens to go wrong rest assured we have one of his many rolls of duck tape on the remembrance table. He promised me one could fix almost anything with that.   And he usually did.