Dorolyn (née Boyd) Lines was born in Baldwin, Kansas, but moved to Colorado as a child.[1] Her family consisted of her parents, Jenny S. and George A. Boyd, as well as three sisters. She was the youngest member of the family.[1] After completing college, Lines married an engineering classmate, Marion Brown Lines, on June 10, 1924. The Lines family would live at 1500 South Cascade Ave, in Colorado Springs, a house built in 1909.[3] However, by 1925 they had moved to 1235 S. Washington St. in Denver.[4] Marion would later die by an accident on April 11, 1934. He was buried Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. Lines had three daughters.[1]
After attending local public schools in Colorado, Lines attended the University of Kansas School of Engineering, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering in 1923.[1][5] She also served as an instructor at the school for one year, but declined an associate professorship when she decided to get married.[6]
Regarding her college career at University of Kansas, on January 2, 1921, Lines was mentioned in a published news article in the Topeka Daily Capital under the heading, "Women Are Pre-Empting All Educational Fields: Law, Medicine, Even Machinery Attract Fair Students.":
This year fourteen women are enrolled in the school of engineering. One woman, Dorolyn Boyd, sophomore from Colorado Springs, is taking mechanical engineering.[7]
Panorama of the University of Kansas campus in the early 1900s.
Following the death of her husband, Lines took a position as a canals and irrigation engineer in the Canals Branch of Designs and Structures, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.[1] Lines remained in this position from 1934 until her retirement in 1966.[1] According to a report in The Western Engineer, in 1960 she visited her daughter in Florida and witnessed the shooting of the second astronaut into space, Gus Grissom.,[8] and attended the 10th Annual Convention of the Society of Women Engineers in Seattle, Washington.[8] Her final major engineering design project consisted of plans for an irrigation system for 96,000 acres near Pendleton, Oregon.[1]
Lines served as Recording Secretary and Treasurer of the Society of Women Engineers Denver Section during 1955-56.[9]
In preserved correspondence from 1958 with the Employment Committee Chair for the Society of Women Engineers, Ruth L. Shafer, Lines strongly advocated for female chemical engineering students who were being rejected from employment opportunities in engineering as they were deemed to be "too dangerous."[2] She stated that:
We are not so much asking you to find a job for these girls, but trying to learn if you know of any chemical engineering work where women may be employed without bias. We can understand that some types of chemical equipment is dangerous, and that it would difficult for a woman to supervise or inspect work around such equipment. But surely it is such a broad field that there are points of entry for women.
The Society of Women Engineers Rocky Mountain Section awards a scholarship named in Lines' honor called the Dorolyn Lines Scholarship.[10][11] Lines was a charter member of the Rocky Mountain (Denver) Section.[2]
The Denver Public Library archive maintains the "Society of Women Engineers, Denver Section: Ladies Brunch Photograph Collection," which contains an image of Lines from February 1956.[12]
