Donna Lawrence Demetriades passed away in Bozeman on February 14. She was born October 27, 1924 to John and Edith Lawrence in Los Angeles, CA. Her family home was in Pasadena, CA.
Donna's childhood and younger years were happy ones with her three brothers, many cousins, pets and a pinto horse named Lindy which she rode every day after school and in horse shows. Her family spent summers in their beach house in Corona Del Mar, CA and the rest of the year at the family home in Pasadena. She attended secondary schools in the Pasadena area, graduating in ceremonies which at the time were conducted in the Rose Bowl of football fame. She spent her first year of college at Anoakia in Arcadia, CA, a private girl’s school where she was awarded a full boarding scholarship.
ln 1946 she received her B.A. degree in Art from Occidental College in Eagle Rock, CA, where she joined the Delta Omicron Tau sorority. Following graduation, she worked in the Stanford University Library in Palo Alto, CA, where her first son, Ted, born in 1949. She also worked in the Rare Book and Manuscript Department of the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery in San Marino, CA, and later at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where she was the “Caltech Y" (YMCA) office secretary. This is where she met the love of her life and second husband, Anthony (Tony) Demetriades. They were married on July 20, 1957 and lived in Altadena, CA, where Ted was adopted by his new father, and where they had two more sons, Larry and Don.
In 1963 Donna and her family moved to the seaside community of Laguna Beach, CA. Here she and her husband became active in many civic affairs such as the Laguna Beach Civic League and the local school board elections. She was a key participant in successful efforts to provide parks for the city, establish aesthetic sign ordinances and fight sprawl. She founded the Laguna Beach Friends of the Library and was a key figure in enlarging the County Library in Laguna beach.
Donna and her husband, Tony bought Roaring Creek Ranch in Montana's Centennial Valley in 1976, and in 1979 they moved to Bozeman when Tony joined the faculty at MSU. Since then the ranch became an all-important part of their life. They raised Red Angus cattle and always owned a pair of horses and a pair of golden retrievers. Besides ranch life, Donna’s interests were family and friends, quilting, reading and cooking. She became an expert stitcher and quilter, and her quilts always adorned her home and the homes of her children.
Donna was a member of the Mount Hyalite Chapter of the Daughters of American Revolution, Bozeman Quilters’ Guild, BWAGS Quilters, the Nature Conservancy, the Centennial Valley Association and the U.S. Humane Society and its Wildlife Land Trust, which has since designated the Demetriades ranch as a Wildlife Sanctuary.
She was preceded in death by her parents and three brothers, John J. Lawrence Jr., Hewson Lawrence and McIlvaine Lawrence. She is survived by her husband, Tony, their three sons, Theodore Coxe Demetriades of Grants Pass, OR and his wife, Jimmie, Lawrence Anthony Demetriades of Billings, MT and his wife, Laura, and Donald Bond Demetriades of Bozeman, MT and his wife, Annmarie; and granddaughters, Anna V. Demetriades of Boise, ID. and Sophia M. Demetriades of Bozeman. She is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews and many cousins across the United States.
Services originally set have been postponed. Details will be announced when rescheduled. Memorials can be sent to Bozeman's Heart of the Valley.
Arrangements are in the care of Dokken-Nelson Funeral Service. www.dokkennelson.com
