Mar. 1, 1920 - Jun. 6, 2016
Date of Service: Jun. 13, 2016
Donna Arbogast
BURLEY – Donna Hutchinson Williams Arbogast, 96, of Burley, passed away Monday, June 6, 2016 at her home.
Donna was born March 1, 1920, in Evanston, Wyo., the first child of Flora Gertrude and Abraham Clyde Hutchinson - "Mommie and Daddy Hutch." In 1930, Daddy Hutch decided he needed to take his family to a smaller, more peaceful town than Salt Lake City, and 10-year-old Donna and her four younger brothers, Lonnie, Bruce, Clyde Junior and Lester, found themselves in Heyburn, Idaho, where after four more years, their baby sister, Sarah Ann, was born before the family moved to Burley.
In 1937, at the age of 17, Donna married Bud Williams and they had six children: JoAnn, Marlene, Buddy, Lori (now Heywood), Clint, and Mary Dawn. Bud and Donna divorced in 1954. Several years later, in November of 1960, Donna married Dick Arbogast, and within a year or so, Donna Esther (Eddi) was born and Dick adopted Mary Dawn. Dick died in 1997, after 37 wonderful years of marriage, and Donna moved from Emerson to her studio in Burley, where she lived until her death.
In the fall of 1957, with two daughters married, one son in the Navy, and three children still at home, and after stints as a waitress, a phone operator, and going door-to-door selling stainless steel cookware and later encyclopedias, in Idaho, Oregon, and Utah, Donna enrolled in Lewis-Clark Normal School in Lewiston, Idaho. In her second year at LCNS she was Student Union president and earned her elementary teaching degree while working part time and caring for her three children. From 1959 to 1980, Donna taught in Idaho elementary schools from Rexburg to Eden to Burley. During that time, she commuted to ISU in Pocatello to get advanced training in special education and learning disabilities, which she often said was her true calling. It was common to go to any store in Burley and have former students or parents of students hug her and tell her how important she had been to them.
When Donna retired, she turned a painting hobby into a vocation, painting and teaching painting for years at Dick & Donna's Hobbies in Heyburn, then at their home in Heyburn, and finally at her home and studio in Burley. Her studio and many homes in the area, as well as throughout the world, show off her paintings and her students' paintings.
Donna's seven children have resulted in 135 direct descendants so far. Her husband, one daughter and several grand and great-grandchildren who have preceded her in death, have already welcomed her home. Those of us left behind will tell stories the rest of our lives about her sense of humor, her sense of adventure, and her wide-ranging energy and talents.
Donna let it be known that in lieu of flowers, she would love it if people chose to support Home Health and Hospice, found on the web at FoundationForHomecare.org. She was also a regular contributor to the non-profit organization known as Smile Train, whose doctors do cleft palate surgeries and train local doctors to do cleft palate surgeries all over the planet.
Donna’s funeral will be held at 2 p.m. Monday, June 13, at the Rasmussen Funeral Home, 1350 E. 16th St., in Burley, where friends may call Sunday, June 12, from 5 until 7 p.m., and Monday preceding the funeral service from 1 until 1:45 p.m.
Burial will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 15, at Gem Memorial Gardens in Burley.
