Maxine V. Dorn

We sadly announce that on October 4, 2026, Maxine Vera (McLaury) Dom passed away at her home in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. She was 101 years-old. Funeral services will be held Saturday, October 10, 2026, at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 705 W. Walnut Street, Independence. The viewing is at 10:00 a.m., the funeral at 11:00 a.m., followed by the burial at Perdee Cemetery, thereafter.

Maxine was born on July 29, 1925, in Milltown, Hutchinson County, South Dakota, the ninth of thirteen children to Herman Dewitt and Mabel Jane (Hayes) McLaury.

She was raised on a farm located on the banks of the James River. She told of the adventure it was to cross the river on a shortcut to play. She attended church activities at the United Brethren Chapel with her family. Herman taught all the children to play instruments and as a family orchestra they played around at community events. The family moved to nearby Sioux Falls for her high school years. Maxine’s abilities to play several instruments led her to experience a train-travelled high school band trip to Canada, where she was chosen as one of two representatives for the school orchestra to musically play in a store-front window as an adjunct to the school band playing for Queen Elizabeth of England.

Her first job is a highlight of her work carer when directly after high school her parents moved to Richmond, California, in 1943, when her father was recruited to support WWII shipbuilding. Maxine also went to work there where she coordinated the entertainment using a staff for the World War II War Bond Effort lunchtime entertainment shows, ship launchings, and banquets, arranging all the talent, their accommodations, and transportations for all three shifts at all three Kaiser Shipyards on the San Francisco Bay Harbor. She spoke of an evening’s dinner program provided to ‘The Boys Who Raised the Flag at Iwo Jima’.

While there she met her future husband, James (Jack) Arthur Dorn, whom she married on January 8, 1946. They have four children. Maxine continued her work career through-out her life in areas of sales, advertising, and executive secretarial positions. She had a sincere and joyous personality; she enjoyed people and cared deeply about them. National politics mattered to her. She enjoyed reading from many current sources. Evenings listening to Art Bell on the radio with her husband, Jack, added to her eclectic grasp of the of culture and science. She was a wonderful conversationalist. Later in life she cared in her home not only for her husband, but for his mother and his aunt until their deaths. In 1996 she went back to school for her A.A., B.S. in Social Work, and completed her Master’s Degrees in Community Counseling at the age of eighty during which she began an internship using her degrees by working for fourteen years as a Public Housing Service Coordinator for the City of Independence until the age of 88. She said that she did everything she did, for Jesus.

Maxine is preceded in death by her husband, James Arthur Dorn, grandson Darren Carter, son-in-law, Mark A. Ransom, her parents, and all of her twelve siblings.

Maxine is survived by her son, Veeder V. Dorn and wife Kathy, of Arizona; son, Mark M. Dorn of Colorado; and daughters Jacqueline A. Ransom and Tammara S. Dorn, Of Independence; Sixteen grandchildren, thirty-eight great-grandchildren, and two great-great grandchildren.

Maxine will be dearly missed by all who knew her.

Obituary submitted by the family.

Arrangements by Royer Funeral Home in Oak Grove, Missouri