As a child, Diane has told us about her hiking in Yosemite with her family. Unfortunately, details of these years are not available to us.
This is a quick summary of what she and her family accomplished:
She was on top of Half Dome twice, once with her two boys at age 8 and 9, and the later time with her daughter at age 15.She has walked the John Muir Trail to Mammoth to Tuolumne Meadows.
She has been through the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River twice- Once from the North, starting from Tuolumne Meadows via Cold Canyon, Virginia Canyon, Matterhorn Canyon, and then Rogers Canyon down to and through the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River back to Tuolumne Meadows. The second trip was with the 25 Boy Scouts plus three dads starting from White Wolf, down to the river and then, again, up the canyon to Tuolumne Meadows.
Of interest, on one trip through Desolation Valley, a mother asked Diane if it was safe for her 11 year old son to go backpacking with Al’s troop. When Diane responded “I hope so. I am going with them.” The mother responded- “Thank God. I like the idea of a mother being with the troop in the wilderness.”
With her family, Diane has also visited most of the National Parks and Monuments in the Western United States, as well as Canada.
Probably the most noteworthy trip was backpacking and camping with the Adams family to Mt. Ansel Adams on the Lyell Fork of the Merced River when she was in her 50’s.
Last, but not least, she loved renting a camper and camping on three of the Hawaiian Islands, Kauai, Maui, and Hawaii. She has also visited the islands of Lanai, Oahu, and Molokai.
THE AIR FORCE YEARS- The wife of an Air Force Lieutenant going through pilot training and in the combat ready squadron in the 1950’s.
After being commissioned in the Air Force, Al entered pilot training. Diane was working for the Southern Pacific Railroad and filed for maternity leave to join Al in pre-flight training in San Antonio. After a month, they moved again to Mission, Texas.
If you follow the news, Mission is a city next door to McAllen, Texas and is about a stone throw away from Mexico. The summer temperature is hot and muggy. Diane was pregnant and the house they rented did not have air conditioning.
Six months later, Diane called another wife to take her to the hospital, getting time off for a young officer about to finish primary pilot training was impossible. She left a note on the refrigerator door with instructions to cook a meal and join her at the hospital.
Three weeks later, they moved 400 miles north to San Angelo, Texas for basic flight training. For a native Californian to go from 75 degree temperature to a 35 degree temperature with a three week old child was quite a transition.
After six months, in San Angelo they moved to Randolph Air Force Base for advanced pilot training, and from there they went to Warner Robbins Georgia to join a new squadron (the 427th) being formed. Robbins AFB was an Air Material base (mostly civilian as was McClellan) with minimal military presence. It is here that their second child was born. At two in the morning, the nurse did not want to wake the doctor on call. However, Diane prevailed and 10 minutes later Gregory was born.
To celebrate Gregory’s birth they brought a Baldwin piano. As it was being delivered the lady across the street rushed over to see if Diane would be willing to give her son piano lessons. A week later, Diane had 25 piano students, while taking care of a very young child, and a 1 and half year old child. Fifteen months later the squadron was transferred to Hampton, VA, about 450 miles north.
When a squadron is moved to a new location it remains fully functional and the dependents were pretty much on their own for handling the move. In Diane’s case, Al was able to fly to Langley a week ahead of the move and find a house to move into. He came home, gave instructions and keys to Diane and took off again. Diane handled the movers who packed everything and then she and another mother with a very young child drove to Hampton, VA. The other mother did not drive and Gregory (now a year old) wanted to sit on Diane’s lap while she was driving. A couple days later the other pilot drove Al and their dog up to Virginia in his car.
After a year in Hampton and with Al being TDY (temporary duty away from home) more than half of that year (in one case he went away for a three day hurricane evacuation and returned 50 days later), Al decided the Air Force was wonderful but too stressful on their relationship so he departed active duty. The cross country drive to California with two small children and a dog took seven days and was relatively uneventful.
DIANE’S LOVE OF MUSIC AND PAINTING.
At the University of California at Berkeley, Diane continued her music career as a music major. She loved playing the piano lessons from age 6 to 20. At Berkeley, she started out as a music major and played first violin in the college orchestra. However, after a year and a half as a music major, she found out that the music Dept. was more interested in composing music than in the performance of music, so she changed her major to Art.
As an art major, she specialized on painting with oils, which included stretching out the canvas and making a frame for her paintings. She did many oil paintings while in the air force. Somewhere around 1970, they built a garage next to the house that included a room upstairs with many large windows and a northern exposure. This became her art studio and when she was not creating art work, she also practice her violin.
Going back to music, she converted the back bedroom into a music studio for teaching piano and violin students for many years. She had a Baldwin upright and a baby grand so that she could teach up to four piano students at time. Her students came primarily from the Arden Middle School where she taught music during the summer. In early 1962, the San Juan school district developed a school sponsored orchestra called the Sacramento North Area Community Symphony (SNACS). Diane always played violin behind the Concertmaster. After Several years, the orchestra re-named itself as the Camellia Symphony Orchestra. The music room in her home also became the home of a string quartet with a versatile fifth member, who was the music teacher in the San Juan Unified School District who either filled in as a piano player, making the quartet a quintet. He was also an accomplished string player who could first, second, or viola if one of the members was not available.
Diane was also a friend of Jack Booch, music director of the Music Circus, and Diane played piano for him when he needed a site to audition candidates for his productions. Her music room was an ideal site.
Diane’s home was her castle and a living art museum displaying her paintings.
CONCLUSION
Diane is survived by her older brother Don Christman, husband Allan Desin, two of her living children Gregory Desin in Pleasanton and Linda Bernardi in Dublin. She has four grandchildren, Nicholas, Geneva, Cy, and Stephanie. Of interest, Stephanie was an unknown grandchild for 30 years. Diane’s eldest son, Erich (deceased in 2005) is the father, but she came to our attention in 2019 when her DNA matched that of her Aunt Linda. Steph has two children, Damon and Noah, who are now Diane’s two great grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held in her honor at Sierra Vista Community Church, 800 Morse Ave, Sacramento on Saturday, July 30, 2022 at 10am.
SHARE OBITUARY
v.1.8.17