WHEATLAND - Memorial services for Doris D. Chaffin, 90, will be conducted at 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 28, at the United Church of Christ in Wheatland by Pastor Scott Hirano. Inurnment will take place at a later date.

She died April 24, 2004, at Platte County Memorial Nursing Home in Wheatland.

Born Nov. 13, 1913, in Acme, she was the daughter of Norman and Zella (Crain) Doolittle; and was raised and educated in Sheridan. Following graduation from Sheridan High School, she graduated from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

A licensed physical therapist, she trained at Harvard Medical School, Stanford University and Children's Rehabilitation Institute in Baltimore. After working in Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio, she was contacted by Wyoming State Health Department's Division of Crippled Children to lead the physical therapy unit of the newly opened children's ward at Natrona County Hospital in Casper.

During the severe nationwide polio epidemics in the early 1940s, she temporarily was loaned to the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis service in Oklahoma City and Dayton. In the mid-1940s, she conducted foundation-sponsored Polio Emergency Hot Pack courses throughout Wyoming.

She married in 1948 and moved to South Dakota. The couple later divorced.

While living on their ranch near Sturgis, S.D., she had a cerebral palsy center for parents to learn to care for their disabled children. In 1954, in conjunction with Sturgis schools, she pioneered the annual screening for scoliosis for all students in grades 4-9.

In 1964, she and her family moved to Wheatland; and, in 1966, she went to work for Platte County Memorial Hospital and Nursing Home. She saw approximately 6,500 patients until retiring in 1987. After her official retirement, she continued to care for physically impaired students in the Wheatland school system.

She lived in a nursing home facility in Fort Collins, Colo., before moving to Platte County Memorial Nursing Home in May 2000.

She was instrumental in the Physical Therapy Licensure Act of 1962; held Physical Therapy License No. 2; and was a member of the Physical Therapy Association for more than 60 years, president of the Wyoming chapter and vice president of the South Dakota chapter.

An active member of the Southeast Mental Health program, she was a community volunteer wherever she lived, including trustee of Wyoming Easter Seals Society and county board member; and member of the rural school board, Mental Health Association, Federated Women's and Extension clubs, Job's Daughters, Order of Eastern Star, Platte County Players, and United Church of Christ.

She was nominated for civil servant of the year in Fort Meade, S.D., in 1963; and was honored with the establishment of the Doris Chaffin Award for outstanding physical therapists in 1998.

Survivors include three children, Jake Chaffin and his wife of Wheatland, Lynne Snow of Beach, N.D., and Kay Wilcox and her husband of Elizabeth, Colo.; 11 grandchildren; and numerous great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her parents and a daughter, Mary Ann Kesler.

The family would appreciate memorials to the Doris D. Chaffin Physical Therapist Educational Fund, in care of Kathy Blair, 1347 S. Wisconsin, Casper, WY 82609.

Gorman Funeral Homes-Platte Chapel of Wheatland is in charge of arrangements.