Life Story

Dorothy Drake, affectionally known as Dot, was born April 11,1951, to mother Ida Mae Drake and father Clarence Sheldon Drake. Though born into an unincorporated area of Citrus County Red Level Florida. Dot spent her formative years in MacClenny Florida until her family migrated to Baldwin Florida. She felt some kinship to the land and settled there, setting down deep roots where she'd spend the rest of her life raising her kids, being an active member of the St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church and working for 55 years until her retirement.

Dorothy was the matriarch of her family, a woman of resilience and silent strength, she managed to keep her family unit together by making sure her kids, their cousins, and their kids all knew what it was like to be a unit, to live amongst one another, understood what it meant to be a family. She devoted much of her time and energy to her family, in their deepest time of need they always knew she could be a solution.

Even her favorite pastimes were the kind that helped her deepen family bonds. She had a love for movies & plays. There wasn't a western she didn't love or Tyler Perry production she couldn't find joy in. Later in life she found a love for relaxing creative pastimes such as puzzles, coloring books and painting pottery.

Dorothy had a life well lived, she placed God first and lived life for her loved ones. To have known her was to have known a great woman, there isn't a person she's met that she hasn't left better with an act of kindness, a mirth of laughter, or some form of wisdom.

She leaves to cherish her memory daughter, Joanna Williams; sons, Micheal Jackson and Clarence Christopher Drake; brother, Peter Paul Drake; Two sisters, Ollie Mae Atkins, and Lula Mae Ayers; 10 grandchildren and multiple great grands and a host of nieces and nephews it is with a sad heart that we say good bye to a sister, a mother, an auntie; the center core of our family, but god truly gained an Angel December 22, 2025.

Ms. Drake, may be viewed on Friday, January 2, 2026, 4:00-6:30pm, at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, 730 Clark Street, Baldwin, Florida 32234.  Funeral Services will be held 11:00 a.m., Saturday, January 3, 2026, at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, 730 Clark Street, Baldwin, Florida 32234 and the interment will be in Mt Herman Cemetery, Macclenny, Florida.

Carthage Chapel Funeral Home, Inc., 929 West Beaver Street, Jacksonville, Florida 32204