Donald Whiteman Obituary

Heaven just received a very fine and kind man. We will always remember his gentleness.
Rest in peace, Don. Until we are all together again.
Love,
Emmet and Olga

In loving memory of a wonderful man. We will love you and miss you always.

I’ve known and met a lot of great men in my lifetime. Men like Bruce Hines, Fred Haze, Chuck Yaeger and even my own father Richard Thornton. All with brilliant minds and incredible achievements. Out of all of them and so many others only one man; Donald M. Whiteman, from my earliest memories did I want to emulate, he was my hero. I always admired him, not for his achievements although there were many but for his gentle nature and selfless acts of kindness. He was completely devoted to family. I have only heard of one time when my mother and he were dating when he bought ice cream cones for all of us but didn’t want us in his car to drip on his upholstery. Oh, what a sin that would have been. That was the end of putting things ahead of family. Damned be the upholstery for the rest of his life. He did appreciate nice things especially when he and my mother would give them to others, and he would teach us to take care of what we had but things were never as important as people.

My childhood was richly rewarded by having Daddy Don in my life. One of my earliest memories was when I was jealous as usual over my big brothers’ ability to ride his Blue Schwinn bicycle. He brought me home a Red Huffy with training wheels removed right in front of my eyes and convinced me that he would teach me to ride. I am sure the effort took hours of him running alongside holding the banana seat until I got it. That lesson lasted me right into high school when I rode a different bike from Huntington Beach all the way to Yosemite.

I remember my mother deciding that her children deserved a Halloween party at which time Daddy Don said “yes dear they do.” He poured his all into it, driving his family Truckster station wagon to every appliance store around picking up as many cardboard refrigerator cartons he could get his hands on. He spent weeks of time in order to create an enormous maze as the entrance into the party.

When it came to school, he was unrelenting. As frustrating as it must have been teaching me a dyslexic, spelling and math without knowing what was wrong. I wasn’t diagnosed until my last year of high school. But he never gave up on me and never got angry or at least didn’t show it. He would drill me on the week's spelling words until I would get them all right three times in a row. I would get to school and proceed to fail the test. Instead of getting upset he would sit me down and keep working with me. I am not even going to let you know the details of learning my multiplication tables.

One of my favorite stories of my youth was when we were really young the family needed a vacation and there was only a hundred bucks to work with. Well we did it and traveled for a weekend to San Francisco for $100.00. I remember getting almost home nearly out of gas and with only about five bucks left in his pocket, he stopped for thrifty ice-cream cones eaten carefully INSIDE THE CAR.

When I reached an age of which I thought I was an adult I moved out. When I would fail, he would take me back, giving me a safe and secure place to call home over and over again. When I was in a position of not being able to care for my own son on my own, he took us in and cared for my son Robert without a second thought. What a devoted family man Donald was, he never had an excuse or complaint but remembered and attended every child’s, grandchild’s and great grandchild’s: marriages, birthdays, graduations, holidays and achievements.

Although I have never known someone who would be canonized as a saint, I have known one, he was my dearest Daddy Don. An online dictionary defines a saint as a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness displaying a likeness in behavior, or closeness to God, one of God's chosen.

It was a delight witnessing our dear Lord escorting you up to heaven. The evening upon hearing you had passed I was driving at midnight thru Montana and was blessed to watch the majesty of lightning with a completely cloudless sky. The lightning could be seen from a hundred miles away and I was sure it was you saying good bye in all your glory. May you rest in heaven paying Trivial Pursuit with Jesus just like your daughter in law Ellen

When I was 6, family friend "Uncle Don" Whiteman, married my mom. In doing so, he said he was not just marrying her but also committing his life to raising me and my 3 year old brother, David Thornton. "Daddy Don" never wavered from that moment forward, providing the three of us with a stable home where we were never hungry, never without clothes, or learning opportunities, or interesting experiences. He was home every night, and we always knew that we were his priority, his avocation, and his joy. My mom has told me countless times how lucky she was to find a man who loved her so much, and was so loyal to her and her boys. Our home was peaceful, and we always knew we were loved.

Dad was a quiet man with a joyful, quippy sense of humor that leaned toward Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Morey Amsterdam; an engineer with a love of math and electronics; a natural teacher who got me through integral calculus, bought science kits so we could sit around the table after dinner and learn about optics, and static electricity, holography, magnets, motors, and more. He drilled us with multiplication flash cards, helped me memorize lines for the plays in my community theater program, tried (unsuccessfully) to teach me how to throw a baseball, and even taught me how to box (and I have the busted nose and chipped tooth to prove it!)

When I was in my early teens, he tried his hand at real estate and took me with him as he trained with the Lumbleau/Edwards real estate course so I could be his "prospect" and help him practice how to close the deal.

His love, commitment, and dedication to his family went beyond mom and her two boys. As we grew up and had children of our own, dad was always there, being the ever-present "fluffy grandpa" for the next generation.

Dad was the model for what it means to be a fully-formed human being and he succeeded in bending the world just a bit more toward goodness and light in the example he set for his family and others around him.

He was a teacher - and he taught me how to live.

I love you, dad. Rest in peace.

So hard to put into words what a kind, so patient, wickedly smart and yet wryly funny Uncle that you were! Rest in peace and please be sure to say hi to the other family members up in heaven! Love you and my love and prayers go out to those that you left behind, especially Aunt Julie, Steve and David. Love to you Uncle Don! Your “MacBeth” niece, Mary Beth