Lorine Parks, writer who elevated Downey culture, dies at 92

Lorine Parks taking notes during a Downey Symphony concert at Furman Park in 2023. Photo by Alex Dominguez

DOWNEY – Lorine Anderson Parks, a poet, writer and fierce champion of the cultural arts in Downey, died Monday at age 92.

She was born Feb. 17, 1931, the daughter of Hugh Craig Anderson Jr. of Pittsburgh and Alice Lorine Roat of Philadelphia.

Born in Pittsburgh, Lorine lived in Syracuse, NY, Waban MA and Mt. Lebanon PA, where she learned about social injustice and the Homestead strike with Miss Kallenbaugh in the eighth grade, and fell in love irrevocably with the French language with Miss Zahneiser in the 10th.

Then the family moved to Larchmont, NY. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College in 1953, where she rowed all four years on the championship crew. She then earned an MA in English Lit from Columbia University. She cherished her lifelong friendship with roommate Maria Petschek Smith.

Lorine married Floyd Roswell Parks Jr. (Buddy) of Los Angeles, Dartmouth 1951. Living in Baltimore where he finished medical school at Johns Hopkins, she taught at the Baltimore Friends School. Then she worked at Pan Am in New York during his internship.

After their first trip to Europe in 1957, they lived for a year in an Indian reservation in Northern Nevada. Then they moved to west Los Angeles while Bud finished his surgical residency at UCLA. They lived six years in Bay City MI where she taught English lit at the new Saginaw Valley College.

Lorine, her husband and kids, Jeff and Carrie, moved to Downey in 1969. They built a cabin in Mammoth in 1970 and skied a lot during winter and hiked and backpacked during the summer, climbing Mt. Whitney and Half Dome and all around Yosemite.

Lorine owned and operated Stonewood Travel in Downey for 33 years. Traveling the world from Tibet to South Africa to the headwaters of the Amazon and all 50 states, scuba diving north and south of the Equator, Lorine always returned to her beloved France and Paris 20 times.

Lorine joined the Rotary Club of Downey in 1988 as one of the first women members and had perfect attendance up to the present. A life-long poet, Lorine was invited to curate a poetry column and then be Social and Cultural Editor by the Downey Patriot. She enjoyed her new career and kept active writing.

Lorine is loved and missed by son Jeffrey and daughter Carrie Wylie (David), granddaughter Lawren and grandson Davey (Melissa) and great-granddaughters Everly and Hayden. The family climbed Mt. Whitney and Half Dome in Yosemite in 1981 when she was 40, Jeff 12 and Carrie 10.

Friends may wish to donate to the Downey Symphonic Society. Read a poem. Learn something new. Find a piece of nature to love and be part of the world.