To request a copy of this photo for your own personal use, please contact our state coordinator. If you are not a family member or the original photographer — please refrain from copying or distributing this photo to other websites.
Thank you for visiting the South Dakota Gravestone Photo Project. On this site you can upload gravestone photos, locate ancestors and perform genealogy research. If you have a relative buried in South Dakota, we encourage you to upload a digital image using our Submit a Photo page. Contributing to this genealogy archive helps family historians and genealogy researchers locate their relatives and complete their family tree.
Submitted: 9/22/24 • Approved: 9/24/24 • Last Updated: 9/27/24 • R276216-G276216-S3
Donna Faye Walden
April 28, 1926 - January 24, 2022
Donna Faye Walden was called to heaven on January 24, 2022 after a long, full life caring for and loving her grateful growing family. She came into the world before television was on the air, on a beautiful spring day to Louis and Cora Viste, a butcher and a homemaker. She was their third child and they soon welcomed two more children to finish their happy home. Her youth was spent traversing her little world between Hills, Minnesota, Brookings and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Attending Washington High School she excelled at stenography, typing and establishing lifelong friendships with several classmates. Upon graduation, Donna began a career with the esteemed attorney M.T. Woods, esquire, as his personal secretary. She had a hand in many prestigious filings, including the beginnings of McCrossan’s Boys Ranch.
Sometime later, Donna met Jim Walden, a traveling encyclopedia salesman, when on a stairway. Apropos, Donna was standing on the landing, and Jim was looking to move up. Jim was a little younger, yet they both felt a connection, Jim moved on, Donna continued her routine, but both were praying every night to somehow reconnect.
Prayers were answered and Jim and Donna were married at First Lutheran Church in SF on December 17, 1955 and the two honeymooned at Disneyland during it's inaugural year. Five years of the newlywed’s traveling schedule led to the joyful arrival of their first child, Linda, and setting up a home in Omaha, then Sioux Falls again.
Prayers were answered again a couple years later when the little family was rounded out with a final child, Billy. Donna dedicated the next decade to doting on and providing daily diligence for her kids to enjoy their childhoods. Homespun birthday parties, lunch at home every schoolday, den motherhood for girl, then boy scouts and meals on the table together every night. She had her impish side, covering slivers of soap with chocolate for the kid’s classmates on April fool’s day, and her everyday heroic side, rushing her kids to the hospital after breaking limbs falling from trees and picking up the pieces after bicycle vs. car exploits.
Donna was whisked away for trips to many foreign ports with Jim and the small town girl soaked up the world’s flavors in Africa, Ireland, Spain, England, Italy, Mexico, and Hawaii and just about anywhere Jim’s car could drive in America. Her favorite locale, other than home was Vienna, Austria.
Donna conveyed her clerical acuity to contribute with all her being to several altruistic societies. She rose to leadership positions in the Catholic Daughters, Prince of Peace, the Altar Society and McKennan Auxiliary. Her happiest times these days were when the new great grandbabies came to visit. She most recently resided at Grand Living at Lake Lorraine, passing on at Good Samaritan Hospice after a New Year’s Eve medical emergency.
We can’t count the number of times people referred to her as an Angel, or a Saint. Probably for putting up with us. Put your natural training to good use, Donna.
Donna is survived by her husband, Jim and their two children, Bill Walden and Linda Walden Lucas, four grandchildren, Bill Walden Jr, Ben (Heather), Charity, and Josh (Elizabeth) Lucas, 7 great grandchildren, Isaiah, Darius, Asher, Justus, Haven, Jericho and Eden, and several nieces and nephews.
Donna was preceded to eternal life by her parents and two brothers, Conway and Donald, and two sisters, La Vonne (Bonnie) Calwell and Iola Edman, her daughter-in-law, Veronica and first granddaughter Misty Walden.
Donna's Funeral Mass will begin at 10:00 a.m. Friday, January 28, 2022 at Christ the King Catholic Church. Visitation with the family present will be on Thursday from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at Heritage Funeral Home.
Contributed on 9/22/24 by 9katz
Email This Contributor
Suggest a Correction
Record #: 276216