Donna Jean Durand France

Donna Jean Durand France, 84, progressed from this life’s adventure on Dec. 10. Donna was pretty serious about everything, especially her family and the Democratic Party. If she could have crawled from her deathbed to vote again for Roosevelt saving the U.S., she would.

Donna was born in Bemidji, Minn., May 14,1925. Donna Jean was a true gold miner’s daughter, beginning her frontier life in Alaska’s Talkeetna Fairview Inn, along with her siblings and close friends in 1937 under the tutelage of her mother and part owner Lillian Mary Workman Durand while her father Carl Sylvester Durand owned and operated the Collinsville Gold Mine on Mills Creek, west of Talkeetna. Donna has two living siblings, Charlie Durand of Naknek and Ruth Darlene Johnson of Upland Calif. Deceased siblings are Agnes Zaborac, Addie Garrison and John Durand.

High school became a problem in Talkeetna so the families moved to Palmer for the winters and it was there that Donna Jean met her lifelong husband and colonist kid, Miles Grant France who passed away June 9, 2008 at 86.

The tests of life really began accumulating after the World War II started and the newlyweds were separated by the Pacific. Donna’s forever love was shot through the left lung and it seemed like forever before she was able to be with him and apply the healing care only a loving mate can provide.

After the war they moved back to Palmer, purchased the east half of the original France Homestead from his folks and there raised four children. Two daughters; Pamela Jean Swift Edwards and Kathleen Kay France, had previously passed away which greatly grieved Donna’s heart. Living children are Sandra Jane Nichols of Arlington Wash., and Miles D. France of Wasilla.

Donna very much enjoyed horses with her daughters, Pioneers, Elks, Moose, and Beta Sigma Phi, and her association with and retirement from MEA.

Miles and Donna finished their life’s work from a home in Palmer, leaving behind 31 great-grandchildren. Life was wonderful; the Valley is where Donna’s dreams were fulfilled, and where she desired her body lay, with family, until the Resurrection.

Services will be Saturday at 10 a.m. at Kehl’s Mortuary in Palmer.