Navato, Marin Co, CA Dolorez J. Pipkin who became one of the first single women in Southern California to adopt a child, died Sunday, Oct. 22, 1995 at Navato Community Hospital. She had suffered several heart attacks and strokes over the past 18 months. She was 70. Msgr. James P. Keane will celebrate her Memorial Mass at 11 a.m. today at Our Lady of Loretto Church. Miss Pipkin was a long time parishioner. Interment will be private at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City. Dolorez Pipkin was born on November 17, 1924 in Los Angeles, CA to William Merrill and Graciosa Vejarde Pipkin. She graduated from Los Angeles High School and attended the University of Southern California for two years. She enlisted in the Navy and served as a telephone operator in the WAVES, 1945-46. Miss Pipkin made her home in Lake Elsinore for 20 years. She loved children but had never married. When changes in the law made it possible for single individuals to adopt children, she became the first single woman in Riverside County to do so. Her daughter, Traci was 5 days old when she took her home in 1968. Miss Pipkin owned and operated a laundromat, The Washing Well in Lake Elsinore for many years. She sold the business in 19?5 and came to Navato in 1931. She delivered meals to shut-ins through Whistletop Wheels and served as a literacy coach in Marin. She leaves her daughter, Traci Nichols of Petaluma; her grand children, Kimberly and Christopher Nichols; her sister and brother-in-law, Panchita and Louis Simon of Kentfield; her brothers, William II of Lake Forest, Placer County and Bernard W. Pipkin and his wife Faye of Palos Verdes Estates, and many neices and nephews. [William Merrill was the son of Merrill Pipkin, and grandson of Philip Pipkin, Jr., who was the son of Colonel Philip. William Philip Pipkin.]