Memorial honors `a real patriot' for her dedication

Dorothy Ridlespriger loved election day.

For 14 years, the former postal worker served as a precinct inspector overseeing a polling station.

"She always looked forward to it. She would stop and get snacks for all her poll workers," said Erica Hinton, Ridlespriger's daughter.

She embraced the responsibility with passion, colleagues recalled, serving for both county and city elections and constantly recruiting polling place volunteers.

At one point she successfully lobbied for extra Korean-speaking poll workers in her Koreatown precinct.

On Nov. 7, Ridlespriger, 68, worked her usual 15-hour-plus election day. She was found dead in her Los Angeles home early the next morning, apparently the victim of a heart attack. In her car were boxes of sealed ballots that she didn't live long enough to turn in.

"She spent the last day of her life serving her community," Los Angeles County Registrar Conny B. McCormack said during a memorial service Monday. "She was a real patriot."

A native of Alton, Ill. who moved to Los Angeles in 1972, Ridlespriger -- who was twice widowed -- is survived by six children, 12 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. She also left behind "a second family -- the elections community," McCormack said.

Her death shocked relatives and colleagues who had just seen her work a typically long election day schedule, starting at 6 a.m. and ending after 9 p.m.

"It always ends up being a 16- or 17-hour day," McCormack said. Precinct supervisors receive a stipend, but McCormack said that in reality the poll workers are volunteers. "It's pennies compared to the hours they work," she said.

Henry Harvey worked alongside Ridlespriger all day at the polling place in the Central Korean Evangelical Church on South Oxford Avenue. He last saw her leaving the church after 9 p.m. on election night, presumably to turn over the ballots and other polling place supplies at a nearby drop-off point for several precincts.

"She looked OK. She was alert all day," Harvey said.

What happened after that is a mystery. Ridlespriger disappeared after leaving the church polling station, touching off a frantic late-night search.

County officials noticed about 11 p.m. that Ridlespriger had not dropped off her ballots. When efforts to reach her at home were unsuccessful, they called Hinton, who lives about 10 minutes from her mother.