Donna Maxine Torkelson

Donna Maxine Peterson Torkelson, born in Fargo, North Dakota on January 7, 1925, passed peacefully to the other side on June 17, 2016, in the loving presence of family and friends. Donna grew up in Tracy, Minnesota, where she graduated high school as valedictorian and drum majorette at the age of 16. She graduated from the University of Minnesota four years later. She came to California for work, and there met the love of her life, her husband Donald Torkelson, who preceded her in death. They moved to Sacramento, where she lived for 60 years. She worked beyond her 80th birthday as an bookkeeper.

She was active for many years in several community organizations, notably Reach for Recovery, which aids women diagnosed with breast cancer, and Soroptimist and P.E.O., both service organizations for the aid & betterment of women. She was an accomplished and prolific seamstress, quilter and knitter, and quite a cook in her Midwestern tradition. Her pies were best ever. Her uncle who raised her was a veterinarian, and she loved and cared for all animals, especially dogs. Her life-long totem was the turtle-she had hundreds of them, from tiny jewelry to a concrete lawn ornament. She embodied that animal's thick skinned steady perseverance, and she passed on holding the fabric turtle that her aunt had brought her from China, the same one she had used for comfort while sleeping or ill.

She dealt with adversity with resourcefulness, courage and humor, and she sure knew how to have a good time.

She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, and her best friend, and her first cousin, both of whom are several years older that Donna, and numerous other friends both new and long-standing. She is an will be missed.

We offer a heartfelt thank you to her caregivers and board & care home roommates who made her life easier and happy in recent years, and a fond remembrance to her dear friends and family-and dogs-who passed on before she did--they sure had some fine times drinking martinis and dancing on the long gone Coral Reef and Palomino Room, or weekending at the delta and river houses.

Donna expressly requested that any donations in her memory be made to the Parkinson Association of Northern California. At her request there will be no funeral.

Uff-da!