Donna Logue Hamblin, 87, of Marcellus, NY, died February 26 in Chehalis, WA. She was born in Syracuse, NY, on May 13, 1936 to Donald Charles and Kathleen Halleck Logue.
She graduated from Marcellus High School in 1953, where she took part in intramurals; scholastic, art and music groups, as well as being editor of the yearbook, Marcellian; and began her lifelong study of the cello. She attended Clark University in Worcester, MA, graduating in 1957 with a BS in Geography. At Clark, she worked as a graduate assistant and prepared diagrams, illustrations and lettering for her future husband, Woodford’s, doctoral thesis. On graduation from Clark, she worked for Pratt & Whitney in the cartography division.
Donna wed Woodford M. Garrigus in 1958 and they moved to North Carolina, and then to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, eventually settling in Ashland. She worked at Hostetler’s Catering, and Hess & Clark.
She attended Trinity Lutheran Church, sang in the church choir, and played cello for special services. She also was a charter member and cellist of the Ashland Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Founding Music Director Harold Weller. She was a member and past Chairperson of the North Central Ohio League of Women Voters.
With her husband Edgar, Donna undertook a canoe trip from Loudonville, down the Mohican, Walhonding and Muskingham Rivers to the Mohawk Dam. An especially shining memory was a weeklong voyage she made with her sister aboard an ore freighter, visiting Great Lakes ports and passing through the locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Lighthouses were a much-anticipated destination for road trips.
Donna returned to New York in 1996. In 2007, she was honored with a Rotary Club of Marcellus Award for her volunteer work at Baltimore Woods Nature Center, at the Marcellus Free Library, and as a trout stocker for the Nine Mile Creek Conservation Corps.
Donna was a lifelong lover of reading and the fine arts. She thrived in the outdoors, and preferred activities of a solitary nature. She refurbished old houses, sketched and painted, hunted mushrooms, and studied photography (exhausting many film developers with her photographs of Great Lakes ports and freighters), and enjoyed knitting, sewing and folding laundry. She was a Master Gardener, and created lovely gardens that laughed with an exotic abundance of vegetables, fruits and flowers.
Donna is survived by children, Catherine Garrigus; Woodford Garrigus of Chehalis, WA; Richard Garrigus of Portland, ME; David (Michelle Morrison) Garrigus of Port William; and stepson, Rick Hamblin of Marquette, MI. Also surviving are grandchildren, Portia, Christian, and Freya; sister Kathleen (Peter) Dawson of Sonoma, CA; and brother-in-law Philip Porter of Sunapee, NH.
She was preceded in death by her first husband, Woodford M. Garrigus; her second husband, Edgar Hamblin, who she wed in 1978; and sister-in-law Patricia Garrigus Porter.
A private celebration of life will be in the Adirondack Mountains, where she climbed lots of mountains, hiked miles of trails, paddled her canoe and camped in beloved solitude in her Eureka pup tent.
Memorial contributions may be made to Marcellus Free Library, 32 Maple St, Marcellus NY 13108 (marcelluslibrary.org); or Save the Children Foundation (savethechildren.org).
Funeral Home: Lower Columbia Crematory, Inc.
Website: cascadiacremation.com