Chandler, Dorothy Buffum, 1901-1997

Born Dorothy Mae Buffum (nicknamed "Buff" or "Buffie") in 1901 in La Fayette, Illinois, she moved to Long Beach, California, in 1904 with her family. Her father, Charles Abel Buffum (later mayor 1921–1924), and her uncle, Edwin, opened the first of what would become the 16-store chain of Buffums department stores. She attended Stanford University, where at a school dance she met Norman Chandler, eldest son of the family that had published the Los Angeles Times since 1883 and was a significant social and political force in the area. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi sorority. The two married in 1922, and had two children, Camilla and Otis, both born in 1927. At the time of her death in 1997, she had eight grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.[2] Los Tiempos (the Times) was Norman and Buff's grand house on Lorraine Blvd. in Windsor Square, Los Angeles, where she lived until her death In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Mrs. Chandler to his Committee on Education Beyond the High School and, in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson named her to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information. In 1950, a financial crisis closed the Hollywood Bowl during its summer season. Chandler chaired a committee that organized a series of fundraising concerts that was able to reopen it, and she later served as president of its parent organization, the Southern California Symphony Association.

Dorothy Buffum Chandler was born in Lafayette, Illinois, on May 19, 1901; her parents moved to Long Beach, California, when she was one year old and her father opened a store, the forerunner of Buffum's department store chain; attended Stanford, 1919-22; married Norman Chandler, son of Los Angeles Times owner Harry Chandler, in 1922; member of UC Board of Regents, 1954-68; assumed a leadership role alongside her husband during the restructuring of the Times-Mirror Corporation, 1950s-60s; spearheaded the fundraising drive to establish the Los Angeles Music Center, 1954-64; honorary life chair, Los Angeles Philharmonic Association; recipient of numerous honorary degrees; died July 6, 1997.