Dorothy B. Potts

Published 12:00 am Friday, November 5, 2010

Dorothy “Dot” Billingslea Potts, 85, of Bowling Green, died at 10:29 a.m. Nov. 3, 2010, at The Medical Center.

The Camden, Miss., native was born March 2, 1925. She was a homemaker. She grew up in Franklin, where her family owned a hardware and grocery store on the corner of Cedar and Main streets. Her father was a horse trainer and taught her to ride at a young age, something that remained a lifelong passion. At age 5, she had her own pony and thought nothing of jumping on her pony and riding all over the county by herself. She attended Stephens College in Columbia, Mo. In 1941, she met Maj. Powell Potts while singing in a night club called “The Boots and Saddles” in Bowling Green. They fell in love and he courted her by “buzzing” her house in his Air Corps plane. They married in 1942 and had three daughters, Eleanor, Dolly and Anne, whom they doted on. Dorothy remained an avid and winning horsewoman her whole life, continuing to show her beloved Tennessee walkers into her 70s. Celebrated and adored for her striking beauty, humor and charm, she will be greatly missed by her children and her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was a daughter of the late David Watts Billingslea and Eleanor Harris Billingslea and the wife of the late Powell Potts. She was preceded in death by a sister, Mary Hampton McCracken.

Funeral is at 1 p.m. Monday at J.C. Kirby & Son Funeral Home, Lovers Lane chapel, with burial in Greenlawn Cemetery in Franklin. Visitation is from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday and from 11 a.m. Monday until time of service at the funeral home.

Expressions of sympathy may be made to Dream Factory of Bowling Green.

Online condolences may be made jckirbyandson.com.

Survivors include three daughters, Mary Eleanor Ciccone and her husband, John, of LaJolla, Calif., Dolly Browning and her husband, David, of Bowling Green and Annie Potts and her husband, Jim Hayman, of Los Angeles; eight grandchildren, Anne Burkin, John Leachman, David Leachman, Amanda Holmes, Adam Loew, Clay Senechal, James Powell Hayman and Harris Hayman; eight great-grandchildren, Alex Holmes, Holly Holmes, Rhett and Jack Loew, Piper Loew, Ava Burkin, Benjamin Burkin and Charlie Leachman; and three nephews.