Therese Doran was born in 1930 in Cap-de-la-Madeleine, near Montreal, to Juliette Guilbert who had been born in 1895 in Manitoba, and to Jean Bernuy, who had moved with his family to Canada from France in 1907 at the age of 14 and had then become a banker. She had five sisters, Helene, Marguerite, Agnes, Madeleine, and Louise, and two brothers, Jacques and Johnny, and stayed close to them for her entire life. All of them grew up speaking French and did not learn English until their teens or twenties. In school, she particularly enjoyed home economics and political science. Shortly after finishing high school, Therese began nursing school in Montreal in the year 1950. Upon graduation in 1953, she moved to Los Angeles where her sisters lived and became a nurse at St John’s and then Daniel Freeman Hospital.

In 1956, she met the handsome young composer and war veteran Mathias Higgins Doran (b. 1921) and married him in 1957. They lived in Los Angeles, frequently moving to various parts thereof including Malibu, Santa Monica, and West Los Angeles, and had five children: Edmund (1958), Marianne (1960), Matt J (1962), Charles (1966) and Tim (1970). She was a loving mother to them and a favorite to their many friends, who always enjoyed Therese’s unpretentious and friendly manner, orderly home, and wonderful dinners and cookies. She operated a small daycare business from their home in Brentwood Glen for several years, allowing her to make money while indulging in her love of taking care of infants and young children.

In 1986 upon her husband Matt’s retirement from Mt. St. Mary’s College, they moved to Van Nuys. A decade later Therese and Matt moved to beautiful green Vancouver, Washington, where they remained for the rest of their lives, enjoying the company of their sons Matt and Edmund, and frequent visits by the rest of their children. Around this time many of her Bernuy relatives moved to the Pacific Northwest as well, and Therese was delighted to make her home open to frequent family visits.

Therese’s greatest heartbreak was the death of her daughter Marianne in 2006 of cancer. Therese developed a blood platelet disorder and immune system deficiency shortly after this, but was in good spirits most of the time. She spent the last twenty years of her life enjoying Monday meetings of the company of a society of women quilters in Vancouver as well as the regular visits of her nearby sisters and family members. She was particularly gratified by the births of her grandchildren — Peyton, Dominika, Miles, and Roman, all of whom came along later than she would have liked.

On August 3, 2016, her husband Matt passed away at the age of 94. She and her eldest son Edmund continued to live in their house in Vancouver, Washington for three months, but then Therese died of a sudden infection at the age of 86 on Thursday, November 10, 2016, surrounded by her sons and their wives Julianne, Laura, and Joanna, her sister Louise, and nieces Sara and Allie.