Born Dorothy Weil in Portland, OR in 1926, she grew up in Hillsboro, OR where her family-owned Weil’s Department Store. That experience served her well in later years. Living in what was then rural Oregon, she rode horses and competed in most high school sports including the rifle team. She attended University of Washington and majored in zoology. She married fellow UW student Larry Urbach in 1950.
She and her husband were living in the Lower 48 when Leon informed the couple that a deal to sell his store, Urbach’s, had fallen through, and he asked if they would consider taking it over. Hesitant at first, Larry agreed, and he and his wife arrived in Seward in 1954.
Not content to be just a business owner, Urbach wanted to give back to the Seward community, throwing herself into civic life, leading or serving on local and statewide boards, commissions and councils. She once joked that if there was a board or commission in Seward, she had been on it. Her service included Seward Community Library, Seward General Hospital, Chamber of Commerce, Marine Highway Task Force, the Alaska Railroad Community Briefing Council, Marine Highway Task Force, League of Women Voters and the Downtown Business Association.
Urbach was an avid fisherwoman and ran publicity for Seward Silver Salmon Derby for 30 years. In 1979, while calling an Anchorage radio station with the derby standings, she looked down the list and said, “in first place is…me.” She won with a 16 lb. 11oz. fish. The Derby dedicated the 2025 competition to her.
The Urbach’s were leaders in the regional Republican Party leading up to statehood and the decade that followed. Their house was a regular stopover, and often bed for the night, for Alaska governors, U.S. senators and other political figures.
Urbach found herself a full-time business owner after Larry died in 1999.
Urbach’s has maneuvered through a lot of changes since Leon opened the shop in 1915. Old-fashioned storefronts lining Seward’s downtown Fourth Avenue business district have changed faces multiple times over the years since gold miners and adventure seekers stepped off steamships in the early 1900s—except one.
The downtown Seward clothing store is one of Alaska’s oldest continuously operated family businesses. Through earthquakes and fires, Urbach’s Clothiers has steadfastly occupied the same building, in the same location, owned by the same family since 1915.
Family matriarch Dorothy Urbach was steadfast in making sure the store retained its old-time charm. The smell of oiled hardwood floors and leather shoes permeates the store. Antiques from days gone by sit high upon a shelf circling the one-room shop. And money is still deposited into a huge brass and oak cash register dating back to 1908.
When new customers invariably ask whether the enormous antique still works, Urbach’s delightfully wry sense of humor shows up. “I tell them they’ll find out if they buy something,” she said.
She ran the store until just a few months before she died in 2025 and sometimes went on buying trips to Portland, Oregon—with the help of her daughter and co-owner Susie Urbach, who recently turned 65.
Susie became involved in the business more than thirty years ago as a bookkeeper when her children were small. Mother and daughter became partners in 2004, and Susie cared for the office work and much of the ordering as well as working with customers.
Her mother’s love for Seward and the store made a big change in Susie’s life. “When I was growing up here, I thought ‘No way would I like to be a part of that,’” Susie recalls. “But now I love it… it’s a passion!” Today, Suzie is a co-owner of the thriving business.
Urbach met one of the biggest challenges of her life in typical fashion.
She was alone in the store when the Good Friday earthquake struck on March 27, 1964.
“I was standing in front of the cash register because all the men were home sick that day,” she said. “It sounded like a locomotive coming through the store. Some of the posts holding the ceiling came down. We lost a lot of structure on the front of the store.”
She climbed over the pile of fallen shoes to the office where she kept the car keys and drove home to her husband and two little girls. The family then moved to higher ground.
With its waterfront in shambles, the city had no choice but to cede its status as Alaska’s commercial center to Anchorage, where the port was intact and still functioning. Many businesses simply disappeared.
Urbach, who called herself a relentless optimist, insisted she never thought of closing the store or of leaving Seward.
“The earthquake set us back, but it also pushed us ahead 20 years because everything had to be rebuilt,” she said.
Before her death, she reflected on more than seventy years as a business owner.
“I still come into work every day,” says Urbach. “I’m not the type to sit home. I love our business. I like meeting people. I like being involved. I just want to enjoy it.
“Moving back here was the best move we ever made,” says Urbach of their return in 1954. “What a wonderful life we have up here. I’m very lucky. I have two wonderful daughters, two wonderful grandchildren, and three wonderful great grandchildren. What else could we ask for?”