The matriarch of the Spatafore family, Mrs. Dorothy McClung, will be 100 years old on Friday, April 12, 2024. Dorothy has gone by many names throughout her long life. As a young child, she was called Dorothy or Dottie Spatafore by her family and friends. Years later, her students called her Mrs. Traugh and then Mrs. McClung. But to her many nieces and nephews, great and great-great; she is just Aunt Dot.

 

Born Antoinette Spatafore, nicknamed Dorothy, in Viropa, West Virginia. She was the youngest of seven children born to an Italian coal miner, Luigi and his wife, Marianna (Audia) Spatafore. She grew up during the depression, her father died when she was very young. Her mother went to work doing housework and laundry to make ends meet.

 

Dorothy and her, sister, Rose Tanzey were the only two in the family to graduate high school.  Graduating from Victory High School in 1942, she worked at McCrory’s dime store for about a year and a half.

 

On the urging of her brother, Jack Spatafore, she joined the Navy and enlisted in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), which offered her the GI Bill for college when she finished her enlistment. In 1944, she enlisted in the Navy and after three months of training, Dorothy was assigned to a secretarial annex in Washington, DC.

 

When her enlistment time was up, she came back to West Virginia and started school in 1946 at Salem College. Dorothy graduated in 1950 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English education, and began work as a high school English teacher, and moved to Logan County, West Virginia with her first husband, Louie Traugh. They were there for three years before returning to teach at Unidis and Bristol high schools. She continued her education, becoming one of the first individuals to earn a master’s degree in library science at West Virginia University, upon her graduation in 1960. Dorothy was then hired as the librarian at Salem College. From there, she went back to Harrison County and became the librarian at Victory High School, and when it closed, she moved on to Liberty High School, where she worked until her retirement in the mid 1980’s. 

 

Her first marriage ended in divorce in the early 1960s. Her alma mater, Victory High School, was having a reunion in the summer of 1967. Her brother, Bill Spatafore went as her escort, and introduced her to his friend, French (Jack) McClung. Within two years, at 46, she was happily married again. Upon their retirement, she and her husband moved to Florida to play golf and enjoy year-round sunshine. Twenty years later, they returned to Bridgeport to be close to family. They were married 42 years at his passing in 2011.

 

A former student, Phillip Nicholson, created a scholarship fund at West Virginia University in honor of Harrison County teachers Antoinette McClung and Jack Roach, both of whom had motivated both himself and countless other students, to set and achieve high educational goals. The Antoinette McClung-Jack Roach Scholarship Fund provides undergraduate tuition, fees, books, and living expenses annually for five Liberty High School students.