Sioux City, Iowa – Donna M. Kilgore, 80, of Sioux City, Iowa passed away on Thursday, May 24, 2018 at her home at Whispering Creek Retirement Community in Sioux City. Graveside services will take place at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 29, 2018 at Graceland Park Cemetery in Sioux City, Iowa.

Donna Marie was the first born daughter of Mr. Donald and Mrs. Marie (Terres) Shortley on Independence Day, the 4th of July, 1937 at St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her adolescent years were spent in the rural small towns of northern Minnesota. She graduated from Minnetonka High School in 1955.

Four months after her 19th birthday, Donna married Richard Montgomery Kilgore at the Little Brown Church in the Vale in Nashua, Iowa. Less than a year later she gave birth to her first of two children, then two years later along came the second. The young couple, with a pair of toddlers in tow, explored the far reaches of California and the L.A. basin. Thankfully coming to the conclusion that Los Angeles was no place to raise a family, they wandered back to the Midwest and landed in the Siouxland area. The family built a home in the quickly expanding Morningside part of town.

Donna was a stay at home Mom until the kids became teenagers. Then to preserve her sanity, she took a position as a warranty clerk with Knoepfler Chevrolet that lasted for more than two decades.

Donna’s prowess as one of the states elite women bowlers was well documented in the early to mid-70’s. But her true forte and passion was being an accomplished seamstress and quilter extraordinaire. To this day friends and family alike have been warmed by her amazing creations.

With both their kids grown up and gone from the area, the couple set out on a spirited effort to spend their inheritance. Donna and Dick loved their gambling trips in retirement. Many trips were planned based on the locations of where new casinos could be visited. The couple stayed together for 58 years until Richard’s passing in June of 2015.

Donna is survived by her younger sister Teddy Cummings of Federal Way, Washington; cousin, Barbara Rogen of Bend, Oregon; son, Jeffrey Alan Kilgore, 60, who resides somewhere in the Gold Fields of Northern California; and daughter, Susie Marie Wells, 58, firmly anchored in the coastal town of Aransas Pass, Texas.

She touched many lives in her time here and they were probably the richer for it. May the Lord God bless her and giver her peace. Amen.

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