Donald Burton Parkhurst

Donald Parkhurst, AKA Parky was born in Watertown, Massachusetts on 1/15/1928, during the Great Depression. He was a First Sergeant in the US Army during the Korean War. After the war he studied Theology at Walla Walla College, where he met and married his first wife Virginia Bergman, raising 4 children; Martin, Helen, Daniel and Gordon.

His early career was spent as a schoolteacher and laboratory technologist. Later he pursued his side interest as a cartoonist, becoming friends with the Greats such as Charles Schultz and Lyman Young. While living in Fremont CA he had a weekly cartoon strip called “The Yolks on Us”, published in the Bay Area, as well as many other published political cartoons and articles.

The pursuit of his Master’s Degree in History with Cal State Hayward changed his life. His research led him to publish a book, (available on Amazon) “The Road Almost Taken” about the early movie industry in Niles California, pre-Hollywood. For this he was nominated for The Ray Billington award and inducted into the Who’s Who Historical Society as an “illustrious biographer for exceptional achievement, leadership and service.”

He married Marion Baumann and together under the tutelage of the Hebrew University continued to pursue his interest in archaeology, running his fingers through the sands of time and excavating artifacts at his own dig at Herodias. He linked the distant past of the Roman Empire with his interest in American history, melding them together in a comic strip. During his years of travels while researching a book he was writing on the history of Islam & Mohammed, he taught school in Fiji and Cairo and sponsored several bright young Egyptian boys to the USA, as well as others from Germany and American Indians with their education.

Donald helped his wife, a survivor of the German concentration camps publish her own story in a book called “Searching Survivor” (also on Amazon) and he became an authority on the Holocaust during this process. He was an avid supporter of Jews for Jesus and Canvasback Missions.

Donald (Parky) had a life-long love affair with his Harley Davidson often riding it to Death Valley with his best friend Bob Keenan. He was a history professor, archaeologist, missionary school teacher, artist, author, theologian and adventurer. He died in a “good old age, an old man and full of years. He was gathered to his people.” Genesis 25:8.

He was a loving father and survived by his five children including his step-daughter Karen Baumann, innumerable grandchildren, great- grandchildren, one great-great-grandson, and a large extended family.