Dolly O’Neal leaves a legacy in cancer research, caring for others

In 2009, Dolly O’Neal learned she had six months, maybe years to live. Outside of her husband, she told no one.

Over the next six and a half years, she watched two of her three children get married and welcomed six grandbabies to her family. She played 70 or 80 rounds of golf a year and continued to lead fundraising for breast cancer research. Many people who knew her had no idea she had stage 4 breast cancer.

“That was the most amazing part about Mom,” her son Camper O’Neal said. “She was positive no matter what, always optimistic, always looking to help others, always looking to have fun. She never complained, not once with 20 years dealing with cancer.”

It wasn’t until the day Dolly died, May 18, 2015, that her doctors told her family about her six-month sentence in 2009.

The drug Dolly took that year had been partially funded by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation of Alabama, an organization she co-founded with Bruce Sokol in 1996 after her first diagnosis. Because of it, four months later she was in remission.

“God wasn’t ready for her 21 years ago or six years ago,” said Kate Kiefer, Dolly’s close friend and current president of the BCRFA board of directors.

In fact, the day Dolly passed away was the 20th anniversary of the golf tournament she and Sokol started for the foundation. In the weeks leading up to the tournament, she had told her sons Camper and Bert they had to play in it. Afterward, they came to the hospital and gave her the report on great weather and money raised. Thirty minutes after they arrived, Dolly was gone.

“It’s almost like she was waiting for that,” Camper said. “I swear she was holding on for that golf tournament so that her dying wouldn’t mess up that event.”

The day before, Sokol had visited her.

“I said, ‘When we started this 20 years ago, all I had to do was give her a little push, and for the next 20 years I held on for dear life,’” Sokol said. “It was pedal to the metal the whole way. We built it together, but she really nurtured it.”

Five days before she passed away, the final funds for the $1.5 million endowed chair for breast cancer research at UAB, now named in honor of her and Sokol, had been complete. Dolly’s doctor and close colleague Dr. Andres Forero holds the position.

Outside the foundation, Dolly’s legacy lies in her role as wife of 37 years to Bert, mother of three and grandmother of six. The one fault Dolly did have, according to Kiefer, was that she talked about her kids all the time.

“That’s part of her legacy — she showed all of us how to be a spouse and how to be a parent and how to be a good friend,” Camper said. “She was all of those and then some.”

Dolly was also active at the First Light Shelter and in the Junior League of Birmingham, or wherever someone sought her help.

“If someone called her and asked for help, she immediately signed up,” Camper said. “She wasn’t going to just tag along, she was going to lead the charge.”

Still, in recent years she focused on raising funds for cancer research. In 2002, she began serving as the director of development for the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center. Throughout her 20-year fight against breast cancer, Dolly always first cared for others. 

“If something happened, she took a few hours to process it and grieve, and then compartmentalize it,” Kiefer said. “Then she moved on to help family members and friends understand. She took care of everyone else, even with her own illness.”

Dolly’s goal in starting BCRFA was to save her daughter, and later her granddaughters, from cancer. It was only as a byproduct of that mission that she benefited from the research herself and inspired countless others with her fight.

“Having been a survivor herself, she was such an inspiration to folks affected by the disease and their friends and family,” said Beth Bradner, the current executive director of BCRFA. “She was just an amazing woman.”

As those who knew Dolly will tell you, cancer did anything but defeat her.

“Cancer doesn’t defeat you when you die from it,” Camper said. “It defeats you when you let it dictate the way you live your life.”

And Dolly lived every day to the fullest.

Memorials in Dolly’s honor were requested to be donated to BCRFA. To learn more about the foundation or its car tag, visit bcrfa.org.