DONNA CARROL (CISCO) ENGLISH
Inseparable in their 65 years of marriage, Edward John English and Donna Carrol (Cisco) English died one week apart, nearly to the minute.
Ed, 86, preceded his wife in death Jan. 28 – a sudden and unexpected loss amid Donna's long breast cancer fight, to which she succumbed Feb. 4, aged 84 years.
The lifelong San Bernardino residents owned San Bernardino Glass and Mirror Co., which Donna's parents, Everett Cisco of Ardmore, Okla., and Mary (Pack) Cisco, of Saskatoon, Canada, started in 1935, six months after Donna was born in Los Angeles in Dec. 1934.
Ed hailed from East Orange, N.J., a first-generation American born in Sept. 1932 to immigrants John English of Greece and Emma Hesky of Germany. Siblings Helen, Frederick, Olga, Michael, Louis (all deceased) and Earl and Phillip (survivors) all made their way to San Bernardino one-by-one, with Edward arriving here in 1948.
Donna took notice of Ed at a school bus stop when they both were students at San Bernardino High School. Fashion trends called for boys to wear dirty jeans, but Ed wore bright, bleached-white jeans, perfectly clean. As Donna told the story, "Ed might not have been the cutest boy, but those jeans – they got me."
At age 18, Ed joined the Navy, pitting recruiting officers against one another to avoid Army service and a winter of Navy training in the Great Lakes region, instead finding himself in San Diego to begin his service. His high school sweetheart, Donna remained at home, working at the glass company, anxiously awaiting news of Ed's deployment during the Korean War. He called his fiancée from his new overseas post: Coronado Island – a mere ferry ride away from San Diego.
The two wed in San Bernardino in July 1953 on a 100°F day at a church at 9th and E streets. There was no air conditioning. A year later, surviving son Mark English of Redlands was born and Ed's Navy stint ended. In 1957 their family was complete with the birth of surviving daughter Julia (English) Looper of San Bernardino.
Though weekdays were for work at the family business, summer weekends meant family time in San Diego County, spending the cool days at the beach and the Del Mar horseraces.
In the following decades, surviving grandchildren Mary Looper and Edward Looper – both of San Bernardino – were born to Julia and husband Gregory Looper. Surviving step-grandchildren Nicholas Spring and Diana Spring and husband Matthew Scherpenisse and two step-great-
grandchildren – all of Grand Rapids, Mich. – came into the family via Mark's previous marriage.
Life for the couple was mostly work until 2006 when Donna's sister, Nicole (Cisco) Rhoades, of Lake Havasu City, Ariz., preceded her in death. Ed and Donna developed a late-life love for travel, using the weekends to explore the United States and their year-end weeks off to transit the Panama Canal and visit Caribbean islands and countries in Central America.
Their joint memorial service was Feb. 11 in Redlands at Packinghouse Christian Fellowship followed by a reception at the glass company. A combined burial service with military honors for Ed took place at Mountain View Cemetery in San Bernardino.
Edward John English, Sept. 27, 1932 – Jan. 28, 2019.
Donna Carrol (Cisco) English, Dec. 19, 1934 – Feb. 4, 2019.
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