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Dottie Frazier, a uncommon girl within the male-dominated world of free diving and scuba diving on the West Coast within the Forties and ’50s who was typically described as the primary girl to be licensed to show scuba diving in america, died on Feb. 8 at her dwelling in Lengthy Seaside, Calif. She was 99.
Her husband, Cyril Could, introduced her loss of life.
Ms. Frazier spent a lot of her adventurous life within the water, making her first dives whereas a younger little one in Southern California. She seemingly had as many diving tales as she had dives.
There was the time she confronted down a shark within the waters off Mexico. The time a big seal needed the fish she was bringing again to her boat and slammed into her, breaking 4 ribs. The time she broke her leg snow snowboarding and made herself a particular moist go well with with an ankle-to-chest zipper so she may very well be rolled into it and thus maintain diving with the busted limb.
Even motherhood didn’t cease her from spending lengthy hours within the water.
“One good friend of mine had a flag she would wave when she wanted me to return again to shore to breastfeed my youngest son,” she mentioned in an interview for Tim Ecott’s e book “Impartial Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World” (2001).
Ms. Frazier was already a talented free diver and pores and skin diver when she took up scuba diving within the early Fifties, when the gear for that exercise was first turning into accessible in america. Initially, she wasn’t impressed with the gear.
“I believed it was for sissies,” she mentioned within the “Impartial Buoyancy” interview. “For individuals who couldn’t maintain their breath lengthy sufficient to catch their dinner.”
However she warmed to the brand new method, and in 1955 she tried to enroll in a Los Angeles County underwater instructors certification course, sending within the required charge. She was despatched a letter saying the course was for males solely, however when she advised that information to a good friend and revered fellow diver, Jim Christiansen, he requested, “Did they return your test?”
“Once I advised him no, they’d not, he mentioned, ‘Simply be prepared; I’m selecting you up,’” she advised the podcast “The League of Extraordinary Divers” in 2016.
She earned her certification, and he or she was quickly educating scuba diving to others. Her top quality, a bunch of male medical doctors, balked at being taught by a girl. She persuaded the reluctant college students to take the primary a part of her course, which was on pores and skin diving, and see what they considered her educating. All of them got here again for Half II, on scuba.
“I used to be pleased with my top quality,” she wrote in her autobiography, “Trailblazer: The Extraordinary Lifetime of Diving Pioneer Dottie Frazier” (2019), “and of my new profession as the primary girl to turn out to be a scuba teacher on the planet.”
Dorothy Adell Reider was born on July 16, 1922, in Lengthy Seaside to Francis and Laura (Davis) Reider, who lived a block from the Pacific Ocean. Her father owned sailboats and motorboats and commenced taking her out on the water when she was a toddler.
“I managed to fall overboard not less than as soon as a day,” she wrote in her e book, “however Dad mentioned I did it on function each time he mentioned, ‘No, you might not go within the water.’”
After her dad and mom divorced when she was 3, she lived along with her father for a number of years on a 28-foot yawl. Grandparents and aunts additionally helped increase her.
“I by no means knew who was going to be taking care of me subsequent,” she wrote. “I suppose this is without doubt one of the causes I grew to become so self-reliant early in life.”
She typically advised the story of how her father coaxed her into severe diving. When she was 6 and anchored with him off Catalina Island, he summoned her to retrieve a coffeepot he’d dropped into 15 toes of water whereas cleansing it. (He couldn’t get it himself, he claimed, as a result of he had a nasty chilly.) She was already a succesful swimmer however hadn’t braved such a depth. Together with her father’s encouragement, she made the dive and recovered the pot.
“It wasn’t too lengthy after that dive that I used to be making dives at depths that I couldn’t consider, selecting up shells and salvaging issues,” she advised “The League of Extraordinary Divers.” “After which my dad gave me some spears.”
Her father provided her with a selfmade masks and fins, and he or she grew to become adept at spearfishing and diving for lobster and abalone, typically catching dinner and typically taking orders from locals. Folks would additionally rent her to retrieve wallets and different issues they’d dropped into the ocean.
She graduated from Polytechnic Excessive Faculty in Lengthy Seaside in 1939 and spent a yr in secretarial faculty. In 1940 she married Don Gath, and so they had two sons, Darrell and Donald. Throughout World Conflict II she labored at Douglas Plane. She and Mr. Gath divorced after the battle.
In 1951 she married Jake Frazier and had two extra sons, David and Daniel; that marriage additionally led to divorce. She married Mr. Could in 1973. He survives her, alongside along with her sons David, Daniel and Donald, and 7 grandchildren.
Along with her work as a scuba teacher, Ms. Frazier, a member of the Girls Divers Corridor of Fame, operated the Penguin Dive Store in Lengthy Seaside for 15 years starting within the Fifties and designed and bought moist fits and dry fits. She realized hard-hat diving as nicely — the sort utilized in underwater business work — however didn’t pursue the profession prospects as a result of, at round 5 toes tall and never far more than 100 kilos, she discovered the gear too cumbersome and restraining.
She was energetic and adventurous even in her 90s. At 93 she went ziplining. In 2019 she lastly bought the final of her bikes. Within the “Impartial Buoyancy” interview, she famous that longevity appeared to associate with diving.
“Quite a lot of the unique divers have made it to an important age,” she mentioned. “Being underwater does issues to your spirit.”
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