Dorothy A. Fruit, former Kent State faculty member and director of Kent State’s School of Family and Consumer Studies, passed away Tuesday evening. Fruit also established the gerontology major before retiring.

Fruit, formerly Dorothy Beck, married her husband James P. Fruit on July 14, 1951. Dorothy and James have three children, Lynn Miller, David Fruit and Jeffrey Fruit, currently Kent State’s interim director of the School of Library and Information Sciences.

Fruit moved to Kent in 1982. Fruit has several scholarships in her name, including the Dorothy Fruit Gerontology Student Scholarship and the Dorothy and James Fruit Human Development and Family Studies Student Scholarship. The first was established in 1993 and was endowed by Fruit’s mother, Ruth Beck, in 1998.

Fruit was a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and received a master’s from Kent State.

Contact Julia Sprowls at [email protected].