Funeral Details

Charlie and I shall miss our dear friend, Don. We send our sympathy to his wife, Sue and all the family members. Fond memories shall always remain with us. Cathy Skala

Catherine Skala

Donald was always an individual, even at a time when conforming was the easy way. Some of my earliest memories were of him runningâ?¦in the 60â??s. Other than the Olympics, you didnâ??t see people jogging. There were spray painted markers in the neighborhood park. You wouldnâ??t notice them, but I knew what they meant from running with him. He tried yoga and continued doing a headstand and shoulder stand every morning at 6:00am. Structure and perseverance were important. So were midnight kitchen runs for Sara Lee cake and ice cream.
Don was excited for the hottest and coldest days of the year because they meant that he could go running and challenge himself. Coats, other than a raincoat to protect his suit jackets, didnâ??t exist for him. He seemed impervious to the elements. It amused the neighbors to watch him walk to and from the train station without a coat in the middle of winter.
Any job worth doing was worth doing as perfectly as possible. This applied to building our shed, pouring the concrete patio, cleaning, or doing yard work. Our lawn and garden were immaculate. We had a backyard skating rink in the winter and volleyball games in the summer. Growing up I didnâ??t always realize that this wasnâ??t the norm. I remember days where he worked from early until after the sun went down.
Other things that I was exposed to that werenâ??t common were garden design, collecting, art, museums, culture and reading. I have carried many of these things through my life and passed them down to my daughter. It wasnâ??t conscious, but she ended up with degrees in geology and museum studies. Who knew that my tagging along to farms in Wisconsin and Indiana in my childhood to collect discarded boulders would translate into a career path a generation later. Somehow, my life has come full circle.
I was the only child among my friends who knew what a tsuba was, brought a Sioux coup stick to kindergarten show and tell, hatched monarch butterflies and could identify plants and rock

Ellen Rubin