- Date Of Birth: June 8, 1934
- Date Of Death: January 2, 2013
- State: Colorado
A VERY BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Donald A. Evert was a ‘good ole country boy’, body and soul. His roots were buried deep in the rich farming soil west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He and his brother, Fred, attended a one room school house, along that country road, not far from the farm. His youth was spent there, doing what county boys do, digging in the dirt, catching pollywogs, caring for milking cows and the many other typical farm animals. During those elementary school years he was moved ahead a year in his class levels.
High school in Hartland, just down the road a piece, he took courses were the basics mostly aimed toward science and math. High School meant meeting new friends; many were life-long in duration, still getting together sixty years later. This area of Wisconsin in the 40’s and 50’s, think small town America. “Everybody knows everybody along with everybody’s business.” One of Don’s outside activities in H.S. was belonging to the band. He became one of those playing the trombone. Can’t you just picture that?
Don’s college years were broken up; between actually attending college, beginning at the Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Extension, 1951; the Army for two years, served in the U.S. Army Reserve for 6 years and then back to college in Madison, finishing his BSME in 1961 and working at A.C. Spark Plug, Div. GMC through April of 1962.
Don met Carole-Joy on a blind-date, set up by his H.S./college friend who was dating a Hartland H.S. friend of Carole-Joy’s. Thus began an over 51 year relationship. Shortly after a July 1961 wedding the couple moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in April of 1962. Now that was culture shock! {“From the Green, green grass of Wisconsin, covered with old growth cooling shade trees; to a desert at 5200 feet with No trees, just sand and yucca and cactus!”} It was also somewhat boring to Don as he was kept away from the main area at ACF Industries which was part of NASA. It took six months of in-depth investigation by the military to clear Don from his, then, Air Force security clearance to the Highest “Q” clearance security level.
New Mexico was wonderful; a slow pace of living, wonderful food, scenery, camping, fishing and hiking. Don grew restless with the reddest of red tape and began searching for a new job in Colorado. He interviewed at Martin and Honeywell on the same trip, taking the job with Honeywell. That move landed them at 861 E. Dogwood Ave., Littleton, CO in March of 1962. Martin was in a boom then, housing that was worth looking at was scarce. They lived at the “Lucky U Motel” on S. Broadway, along with a roomful of house plants and a cat, for nearly 3 months. Whew!
The house on Dogwood was brand new. It had nothing, no appliances, no phone, no trees, no grass, truly a blank slate. The motel had those house plants that had made a 2nd move in under a year, and a cat. The moving van was waiting somewhere to deposit all the household treasures, just had to wait for that VA loan to be approved. June of 1963 the family of three (the cat included) moved in and stayed.
“The dwelling” slowly turned into a home. Don and C.J. leveled the front yard, planted the one tree provided by the building contractor, worked the sand, sheep ‘n peat into the clay and planted grass seed! Don would go off to work and in the June heat, CJ kept the grass seed wet. The yards, front and back have under gone several major changes since 1963.
The first Pembroke Welsh Corgi joined the home of the Evert’s in August of 1963. Corgi puppy and cat were soon good friends. The next big change occurred in April of 1964 with the arrival of Thomas Carl Evert. At this point the cat was kept away from the Corgi’s baby, as were other dogs and strangers. It was very sweet to watch the inter actions between Thom, “Katy” and “Ruff” as everyone became more involved.
By now Don was attending night school at CU Denver, and later at DU completing his Masters for Mechanical/Electrical Engineering.
Eric Arnold Evert entered the family group in July of 1968. A rivalry still exists naturally between the boys. It was evident early on that Thom was math/mechanically inclined and Eric, while also good at those skills, was more artistically bent. And still more, both boys were interested in sports. Thom tried some youth football that lasted until the soccer games from England stated showing on T.V. Following a season of watching International Soccer, both Don and Thom, followed by Eric four years later, were going to soccer practice three times a week and Saturday games. Mom took photos, and took them all through Thom and Eric’s High School and competitive soccer league games.
Don had great patience and lovingly cared for the boys when CJ was traveling as an American Kennel Club obedience and tracking judge, sometimes several weekends a month.
He worked for Honeywell / Metrum for his entire career as a Senior Design Engineer/Instrumentation Products. He holds several US Patents for his engineering design work. He worked on the design of the Ultra Sound Imaging head, along with multitudes of technical data recorders and submarine military data recorders.
That is just the tip of the ice berg. I am sure that any of his co-workers could tell us stories that would make all of us say, “uh huh, that sounds like Don”.
Some things that were quintessential Don.
Triumph
He completely restored a 1956 Triumph TR-3 convertible. He purchased it from a former co-worker Ron Anderson that was moving to Washington State and could not take it with him. It was black and rust, did not run, the top was ruined by weather. He literally stripped it to the bones. He fully sand blasted, primed and painted it RED. He re-upholstered the seats, doors and dashboard. Since he was also an electrical engineer he rewired it completely and converted it from a positive ground (darn Brits) to a negative ground.
He could be seen driving it all over the Littleton area in all types of weather. He even used as the center piece for one of his girl’s soccer team photo.
Football
His love for the Green Bay Packers!!!! It was hard to grow up in Wisconsin and not be a fan of the Packers. He did adopt the Broncos as his second team allowing that it was ok to have an NFC favorite and an AFC favorite since they wouldn’t play that often. Then the 96-97 season championship happened and the Packers and Broncos met in Super Bowl 32!
“Don asked who he was cheering for?” “He said it was great for him because no matter who won he would be happy.” (We all knew deep down he was cheering for the Packers!!!) Once a cheese head, always a cheese head. When the Broncos won (Yeah!!!!), “He said it was the Broncos turn. After all the Packers already had several titles and Denver finally earned that one!!!” However, he didn’t forget to mention that the trophy is named the “Lombardi Trophy” for a reason.
Soccer
Don also loved soccer; he coached girls’ teams and was a referee in Littleton for over 20 years. Since he had two sons, he was once asked him why he chose to coach girls. His reply, “I have 2 boys”. He loved his sons but he also believed a dad really shouldn’t coach his own child; he should just be there and cheer for the child. Don also served on a committee to join two Littleton competitive soccer clubs the Littleton Knights and the Littleton Bombers together to form Littleton United Soccer Club. He served on that board for many years. Back when Don got involved with soccer all the coaches, board members, etc…, were volunteers giving many hours of their own time to the youth. He loved coaching, sharing his passion for and knowledge of the game with those lucky girls.
When his son Eric moved back to Littleton in 1993, Don recruited Eric to come and help with a soccer practice. He knew if Eric came out to help coach that he would be hooked. Over the next 7 years and 13 seasons they coached together. Planning practices 3-4 nights a week and games on the weekends. They coached two different competitive teams together from Under 12 to High School. Their first team together gave Don the nickname “Papa Smurf” a term of endearment and respect from his players, once he learned who Papa Smurf was, he was flattered. Their second team would sometimes comment when he was driving the red convertible here comes Santa. He did have a great white beard. Coaching and volunteering his time he was able to pass on the love for the game and many valuable lessons on and off the field. It was a wonderful time spent together with something they both loved.
When Don was not coaching he was refereeing soccer games throughout the Denver metro area. It seemed during the soccer seasons he was always at a field somewhere.
METRUM Credit Union
Volunteer
Don also did volunteer work annually for the Arapahoe Santa Claus Shop. The other day a long time neighbor & Santa Claus Shop volunteer shared this story with his son Eric. Every year Peggy would contact Don to help move the toys. Don would reply jokingly “you’re not giving me an option are you!” She would say “no”. Don would then happily go pick up and deliver the toys where they needed to go. He was a really wonderful giving special person who his family and friends loved very much.
Hobbies
Camping and fly fishing in Wyoming at the headwaters of the Green River was also something Don loved to do. He and his family took annual summer trips there as the boys were growing up. His love of fly fishing and the outdoors was definitely passed on to his sons Thom & Eric. Now, his middle granddaughter Bryanna has found an appreciation for fly fishing.
Goodson Recreation Center was another place you would find him; he loved to work out, swim and run. Something Missy (his daughter in-law) will never understand, since her family’s motto was “run only when chased”. Don ran in a 5K race placed 2nd in the Over 70 age group. He enjoyed working out so much; he would ride his bike along the Highline Canal trail just to get to Goodson.
He loved genealogy. He spent hours researching his family tree going back several generations to Norse and European roots. He even went as far as drafting his tree on mylar with a “Honeywell” title block to track his progress.
He seemed to always follow the “Dilbert” philosophy/principals. He kept every single calendar cartoon given to him. He had boxes of pages and kept multitudes pinned to his bulletin boards.
Don was a “packrat” he saved anything and everything. He always thought he might need it, use it or fix it someday.
Grandchildren
He is lucky enough to have three of the most beautiful, smart, talented and loving granddaughters.
The eldest, Kimberly had this to say about her grandfather. “Donald Evert was not only an amazing husband, father and grandfather but a teacher to so many. He always loved, supported and encouraged people to follow their dreams and goals. From his family, to his co-workers, to the kids he coached, he taught all of us that with hard work, dedication and persistence any (and I mean anything) is possible. He always supported my goals even if they seemed silly at the time. He was incredibly passionate about health, engineering and furthering his knowledge about the world. I have always admired how humble he was for being so intelligent and so wealthy in relationships. My heart hurts to know I won’t ever get to sit down with him again and just talk. I know he’s in a much better place with God. I will forever be grateful for the years I had with him and hope that I show as much compassion, support and love to the people in my life time as he did in his.”
Two quotes I think really think embody my grandfather’s philosophy:
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
“Anything that you learn becomes your wealth, a wealth that cannot be taken away from you; whether you learn it in a building called school or in the school of life.
Even though you aren’t here with us anymore, you will always have a place in my heart and I will always carry the things you have taught me through this journey we call life.
Finally
His last few years were difficult because of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, but he always had a very positive attitude and would read his Scientific America Journals and tell family that they would have cures for both very soon!!! It just would not happen soon enough to help him.
