Grace L. (Starr) Dorbeck

Grace L. Dorbeck, 92, of Moline passed away, Saturday, March 27, 2021 at Heartland Health Care in Moline.

Visitation will be from 4:00-6:00 p.m., Wednesday, March 31, 2021 at Esterdahl Mortuary & Crematory, Ltd.  A funeral service will be 10:00 a.m. on Thursday at the funeral home.  Interment will be at the Rock Island National Cemetery.

Grace was born on February 23, 1929 in Farmington, Iowa the daughter of Roy and Gertrude Leffler Starr.  She married Christian Dorbeck in 1949 in Farmington, Iowa.

In high school, Grace was captain of the women’s basketball team which won her a scholarship to the American Institute of Commerce (AIC) in Davenport, IA in 1947. After graduating AIC, she worked at Deere where she met Chris, her future husband. They built their own house on the shores of Rock River in Moline where they raised their two children.

Grace loved to create beautiful things and for thirty years worked in clay and taught hobby ceramics at her home studio, guiding her students and winning many blue and Best of Show ribbons at the Mississippi Valley Ceramic Association shows and at county fairs. For twenty years she was the supervisor of the Fine Arts Division of the Rock Island County Fair. In the mid-eighties Grace earned an Associate Degree in Fine Arts from Black Hawk College.

Grace loved her home where she fed and identified the wild birds at her feeders. She was loving, kind, and open-hearted, and many of her children’s friends simply called her “Mom.”

Survivors include her children; Susan Dorbeck of DeKalb, Illinois and Steven Dorbeck of Moline, Illinois.  Grandson; Ian Dorbeck.  Sister; Helen Holland of Freeport, Illinois, and nieces & nephews.

She was preceded in death by her husband, parents and siblings; Roy Starr and Marjorie Bruggeman.

Memories may be shared by visiting the tribute wall.