Romona Thornburgh

Romona Marie (Hill) Thornburgh was born on December 31st, 1938, in Longview, Washington and died on February 5th, 2023 in Salem, Oregon. In between those ordinary statistical identifiers she led a marvelous life as a wife, mother, musician, skilled worker and exceptional travel mate.

She spent her childhood in Longview, attended R.A. Long High School and Lower Columbia Junior College. She grew up in a musical family and took up the oboe at an early age while also studying piano and singing in choirs. Her favorite oboe story was that often, when she practiced at home, a neighbor’s dog would sit in the yard and howl. She took and excelled in business courses and worked as a secretary in Longview, at General Dynamics in San Diego and finally in Salem.

In San Diego, as she told it, she was driving home from work one day and a voice, “sounding like George Burns,” told her to go back to school. So she did! She and her husband, Hale, would later joke that they owed almost 60 years of “having a grand time together” to a former vaudeville comedian. In the spring of 1963 she enrolled at San Diego State College majoring in Early Childhood Development while simultaneously signing up for orchestra and band. The first day she showed up for Concert Band, the director saw her instrument case and unenthusiastically assumed she was just another clarinetist. When she asked where the oboes sat, he immediately warmly welcomed her and ushered her to the correct section. She played oboe and English Horn in band and orchestra and joined Sigma Alpha Iota, the women’s professional music fraternity, eventually becoming its chapter president. In June of 1963, John F. Kennedy gave the commencement address at San Diego State. The music for that day did not have a second oboe part so Romona played a clarinet so she could sit with the concert band on the speakers’ platform and play “Ruffles and Flourishes” and “Hail to the Chief” for the President.

It was in that Music Department where she met Hale Thornburgh, with whom she struck up a casual relationship that evolved into their marriage on July 15, 1966 and lasted 57 years until her death. When Hale joined the army in September of 1967 and eventually was stationed in Germany, she joined him there. They purchased a brand new 1968 VW, drove it all over Europe, shipped it back to the U.S. in 1970 and still have it. They traveled extensively when they could – Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, England, Denmark, Austria, France, Switzerland and Spain – and decided they like traveling together. They traveled to Spain in 1969 where they camped in a three-and-a-half legged umbrella tent they called “The Ritz.” Another outstanding memory was in 1970. They were walking across the grass approaching Hitler’s bunker in East Berlin when the East Berlin police, the Stasi, yelled at them that they were trespassing. Later that same day, the East German border guard flirted with Romona as she came back through Checkpoint Charlie.

It was in Berlin that Romona was notified that her mother was dying of cancer, so she had to return to the US before Hale’s tour was complete. That is when she learned that her father had Alzheimer’s disease, the condition she would inherit and which would ultimately claim her life.

They settled in Salem in the fall of 1970, unemployed but optimistic. Hale eventually took a “temporary” job with the Oregon State Employment Department that lasted 29 years. Romona found work teaching preschool kids. One place was “Winnie-the Pooh” Day Care where her nickname was “Eeyore.” When economics necessitated a change, she worked as an accounting clerk for the Marion County I.E.D. until daughter Shelley Marie was born in 1975, joined by a son, Colin Hale, in 1977. She typed transcripts at home of Unemployment Insurance Hearings for several years, always receiving excellent ratings as a transcriber and word processor operator until that job became obsolete. She used her acquired computer skills as part-time secretary for Oregon Music Educators Association. Starting in 1989, she worked for Community College Services until her retirement at the end of April, 2000.

Throughout all those years she was active in music. She played with the Salem Pops Orchestra for almost forty years, the Keizer Community Band for fifteen years, various chamber orchestras and workshops, woodwind quintets and “pit” orchestras, and filled in whenever another oboe or English horn was needed. She was also a singer. She performed “Send In The Clowns” with the Pops and joined Hale on stage to sing some of their folk duets that they had developed during their time in Germany. They joined Morningside United Methodist Church in 1979 and sang in the choir until the Pandemic. Similarly, they joined Festival Chorale Oregon in the spring of 2002 and sang in Carnegie Hall three times, Lincoln Center twice and, as fill ins, the National Cathedral twice, plus multiple tours of Europe, singing in marvelous cathedrals, intimate community churches and beer tents. In all, they shared over half a century of making music together.

They always delighted in traveling and looking for offbeat experiences. They worked three times as Chase Crew for a cousin’s hot air balloon in Albuquerque, landing in a lot of interesting places, sometimes not too gently. They eventually traveled to all seven continents. Among other experiences, she walked with and kayaked amid penguins in Antarctica, rode in a zodiac amongst walruses in the Arctic, watched African lions argue over a freshly killed “buffet,” snorkeled in French Polynesia and the Galapagos, climbed China’s Great Wall and Machu Picchu in South America, petted whales in Baja California and endured a shower of whale snot, hugged a Koala Bear and rode a camel in Australia, petted an owl at the Eisteddfod in Wales and soared 1200 feet above Queenstown, New Zealand tandem paragliding. She did all these and much more with a spirit of adventure and limitless shared fun.

As feared, she inherited Alzheimer’s disease, which slowly but steadily eroded her mental acuity, physical capabilities and musical skills. She retired from all her musical performance groups at the beginning of the Pandemic. She still loved music and attending performances but could no longer participate at a personally satisfactory level. She was hearing Beethoven’s Piano Trio number 2 when she peacefully passed away.

She is survived by her husband Hale, daughter Shelley, son Colin, granddaughters Rayne (née Sabrina) and Danielle, and her sister Adrienne Eide. She hated the thought of any fuss being made when she passed and requested that any contributions people might want to make should go to Alzheimer’s research and prevention.

Romona's memorial service, a "Celebration of Life," will be held on Saturday, March 25th, at 2:00 PM at Morningside United Methodist Church, 3674 12th St SE, in Salem. Her interment for family will be at 11:30 AM in Willamette National Cemetery on Monday, March 27th at its Columbarium.

One thing Romona and I talked about years ago, when we could still converse objectively on the subject, was that people shouldn't wear black. She wanted colors!