Donna Logue Hamblin, 87, of Marcellus, died Feb. 26, 2024, in Chehalis, WA. She was born in Syracuse on May 13, 1936, to Donald Charles and Kathleen Hallock Logue.
She graduated from Marcellus High School in 1953, where she took part in intramurals; scholastic, art and music groups; as well as being the editor of the Marcellian; and began her lifelong study of the cello. She attended Clark University in Worcester, MA, graduating in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in geography. At Clark, she worked as a graduate assistant and prepared diagrams, illustrations and lettering for her future husband, Woodford’s, doctoral thesis. On graduation from Clark, she worked for Pratt & Whitney in the cartography division.
Donna wed Woodford M. Garrigus in 1958, started a family in North Carolina, completed that phase in Victoria, BC, and settled in Ashland, OH, her husband’s hometown. She worked at Hostetler’s Catering and Hess & Clark.
She attended Trinity Lutheran Church, sang in the church choir and played cello for special services. She also played cello in the Ashland Symphony Orchestra. She was a member and past chairperson of the North Central Ohio League of Women Voters. With her husband Edgar, Donna undertook a canoe trip from Loudonville down the Mohican and Walhonding Rivers.
Donna returned to her adolescent home in Marcellus in 1996. In 2007, she was honored by the Rotary Club of Marcellus Award for her volunteer work at Baltimore Woods Nature Center, the Marcellus Free Library and the Nine Mile Creek Conservation Corps.
Donna was a lifelong lover of reading and the fine arts. She thrived in the outdoors, and preferred activities of a solitary nature. She remodeled old houses, sketched and painted, studied photography, hunted mushrooms and enjoyed knitting and sewing. She exhausted film developers with her many photographs of ore freighters in ports of the Great Lakes and passing through the locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway. A cherished memory was a weeklong voyage with her sister, Kathleen, aboard an ore freighter. Lighthouses were a much-anticipated destination for road trips. She was a Master Gardener, and created lovely gardens that laughed with an exotic abundance of vegetables, flowers and fruits.
Donna is survived by her children Woodford M. Garrigus of Chehalis, WA, Catherine E. Garrigus, Richard L. Garrigus of Portland, ME, David E. (Michelle Morrison) Garrigus of Port William, OH; her sister Kathleen (Peter) Dawson of Sonoma, CA; her stepson Rick Hamblin of Marquette, MI; and her grandchildren, Portia, Christian and Freya.
She was preceded in death by her first husband, Woodford M. Garrigus; and by her second husband, Edgar Hamblin, who she wed in 1978.
A private celebration of life will take place in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, where she climbed mountains, paddled a canoe, and camped in beloved solitude in her Eureka pup tent.
