Anonymous12/2/1930 – 8/18/2021
Donna Peddicord was born Donna Mae Tripp on December 2nd, 1930, in Belvidere, Illinois. She was the daughter of Anna Tobyne and Ivan Tripp. She had an older brother named Gerald. She was a good student in school and took bookkeeping, typing, and dictation classes as a backup for her future career. She grew up on a small farm in Northern Illinois and helped her parents take care of the animals on the farm.
Donna had a tough childhood due to the childhood illness of her brother. The family struggled to make it during the depression. In high school, Donna was a popular student with an active social life and lots of young men showing interest in the dark-eyed young woman with beautiful dark hair. She met her future husband Pat through her brother Jerry. Jerry loved to ride motorcycles and one day brought home a young WWII veteran who was now a hard hat diver with the Merchant Marines. After a few visits, Pat asked her if she wanted a ride with him. She went along and they soon became close as Pat took her to the senior prom. Shortly after high school, she married Pat at her local church and over one hundred people attended. After a couple of years, Pat and Donna had their first son, Tim. Escaping the hot, humid heat of Illinois, they moved to California. Pat got a good job with Standard Oil as a roughneck, and they began to slowly build their family.
Donna helped run their first successful business on the side as she also worked as a housewife. During this time Donna started painting China. Within a few years, she became one of the best China painters in the country. She would later paint a tea set that was given to Queen Elizabeth and is now in Windsor Palace. Donna had three more sons, Michael, Terence, and Gerald. In her mid-fifties, Donna went to Santa Barbara City College where she was on the dean’s list and got her AA degree in art. She changed her interest in art to watercolors and painted beautiful pictures of wildflowers and landscapes of California and then later of rural England and Tuscany, Italy. Donna was a wonderful mother and grandmother always offering unconditional love and great advice when asked. She was a great wife to her husband Pat for forty-seven years until his death.
Donna is survived by her sons Tim (Karen), Mike (Karen), Jerry (Paul), and Terry (Lynda) and five grandchildren, Brian (Roxana), David (Anat), Sean (Ronald), Aaron, and Kellen.
