Dora Virginia (Rosenblatt) Heap, daughter of Dora Cordelia (Leach) and Paul G. Rosenblatt, was born in Prescott on October 16, 1906. She attended Lincoln and Washington Elementary Schools and graduated from Prescott High School in 1924, where she was active in dramatics and in athletics, as captain of the girls’ basketball team. The class prophecy in the 1924 high school yearbook reads, “Dora Rosenblatt has become one of the best revivalists of the time. She has done more, perhaps, than anyone else to abolish dancing, smoking, card playing and cosmetics in Arizona.”

Dora graduated from Tempe Normal School and returned to Prescott in 1926 to teach first, second and third grades and to coach boys’ basketball at Miller Valley Elementary School. A Prescott High School romance led to the wedding in Greenwich, Connecticut, of Dora and Joe Heap, son of Helen (Wells) and Harry Heap, on April 4, 1929, just before Joe’s graduation from Dartmouth College.  Dora and Joe had one daughter, Dora Jo, born September 26, 1929, in Bronxville, New York.

Dora organized and chaired the Republican Women of Yavapai County and played an active role in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. She belonged to the Yavapai Community Hospital Auxiliary. A member of the Hassayampa Country Club, she was the runner-up in the State Ladies’ Golf Tournament in 1954. Dora sang at the Elks Opera House for many years and was known to area residents as "Prescott’s Own Songbird."  The Heaps lived at 940 Country Club Drive.

From 1965 to her retirement in 1972, Dora was director of Sharlot Hall Museum. During her tenure, the Governor’s Mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the museum property was expanded. The museum purchased the Fremont House and moved it to the museum campus.  It was restored and opened to the public in 1974, after Dora retired.

Her mother, Dora Cordelia (Rosenblatt) Walker, her sisters, Pauline Gerhardt (Rosenblatt) Tovrea, Louise (Rosenblatt) Lynch and Bertha Louise (Rosenblatt) Scholey Boone, as well as her grandmother, Dora (Morton) Leach Russell Bubar and her mother-in-law, Helen (Wells) Heap, are also commemorated in the Territorial Women’s Memorial Rose Garden.

Dora died on June 29, 1984, and her ashes are interred in the Mountain View Cemetery mausoleum.

Donor: Sharlot Hall Museum Rose Garden Club
Photo Located: Yavapai County People & Family Collection, F-Rosenblatt Family
Updated: 11/18/2015, D. Sue Kissel