DOUGHERTY, Erva Kalvig (1918-2006)

DOUGHERTY, KALVIG, ASBE, FREELAND

Posted By: Bobbie (email)
Date: 2/2/2011 at 21:49:16

The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
Thursday, February 16, 2006; Page B06

Erva Kalvig Dougherty Agriculture Department Employee

Erva Kalvig Dougherty, 87, who did administrative work at the Agriculture Department in the 1960s and 1970s and enjoyed minor celebrity in the early 1940s as the "cigar counter cutie" at the Willard Hotel, died of cardiac arrest Feb. 7 at the Warrenton Overlook Health and Rehabilitation Center. She moved from Hyattsville two months ago.

Mrs. Dougherty was born in Britt, Iowa, and raised in Mason City, Iowa. She sang in a high school glee club and clerked in stores in Mason City and Chicago before settling in the Washington area in 1940.

As the Willard Hotel's cigar counter attendant, she was repeatedly singled out for her good looks by the old Washington Daily News. She soon became a greeter and interviewer for WINX radio at the then-new National Airport in 1941.

She spent several years as a War Department secretary and was a drummer and singer with an "All-Government Girl" dance orchestra that entertained troops during World War II.

She was a member of St. Mark's Catholic Church in Hyattsville. For years, she did fundraising work for the National Symphony Orchestra, where her husband was an assistant manager.

Her husband, Edward T. Dougherty Sr., whom she married in 1942, died in 2001.
Survivors include two children, Carol Freeland of Warrenton and Dr. Edward Dougherty Jr. of Bethesda; two brothers; a sister; and six grandchildren.

*Erva was the daughter of John and Bertha Asbe Kalvig.