Donna Jeanne Ragon Cheney March 20, 1939 ~ November 9, 2018 Donna Jeanne Ragon Cheney, wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, traveler, friend, passed away peacefully at home this Friday, November 9, 2018. She was born March 20, 1939 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Donna’s gifts were many: singing, literature, and teaching.
These filled her life but, family for her was her priority, and that idea of family spread wide enough to encompass anyone in need. She could provide a shoulder to cry on, an arm to bear you up in time of need. These she often matched with a fierce Irish temper (she kissed the blarney stone.
Twice! ) and a sharp rebuke to cut through senseless self-pity or arrogance, and yet she had a tender heart. Donna was a musician of considerable talent.
In college, her singing landed her the opportunity to sign a professional contract with the promise of fame and fortune, an offer she considered and refused in favor of raising a family and pursuing a career in academia. Donna was a skilled seamstress, accomplished cook, worked in stained glass, lead choirs, taught youth groups and managed innumerable callings in the Church at both the ward and stake level. Leadership often reached out to her for help with special projects or just for advice.
She encountered the Church in her teens, and was the first of two in her family to be baptized. For the rest of her life, she insisted on the interconnectedness of faith, education, and self-awareness, never one for blindly following. Her faith and testimony are strong.
At age eighteen, Donna got herself into BYU on a mathematics scholarship, and on the way met the man who would be her husband for the next fifty-nine years. Together they raised five children and boast 11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Donna found a great deal of joy and satisfaction as a professor of language and literature at Weber State University, first with a Master’s degree and then a doctorate, a less common accomplishment for a man in the early 80s but an outright rarity for a woman.
But once she set her mind to something, it was as good as done. For her Ph.D., she attended one of the top fifteen universities in the nation, finishing with a double emphasis in 15 months with a 4. 0 average, and leaving several of her professors quaking at her scholarship, determination, and force of personality.
Donna was always a force to be reckoned with in every aspect of her life. In the classroom she understood and taught that the great literature teaches us who we are, who we should be, and that happiness lies in striving for our best selves. She helped students understand what is great and what is good, what things in life are worth pursuing, and what are a poor investment of time and energies.
She encouraged students and everyone around her to never settle for commonplace, easy solutions. With such a philosophy as a teacher, she changed many lives and infuriated many colleagues. She was not one for solidarity with fools.
Donna was a voracious traveler. Pins in a world map of the places she visited look like someone dropped a closet of office supplies. She learned languages, cultures, literatures, and passed on a love of these things to those around her.
She was always eager to revisit favorite places, (London! Paris! ) or to blaze a trail to new places, (Moscow!
Beijing! ) She had the “go bug,” infecting those she loved most with it, including a decade-worth of Spring break trips taking eager groups Weber State students to England. Many a student was able to see the works of Shakespeare performed in Stratford-on-Avon and read the poetry of John Milton in his home at Chalfont-St-Giles thanks to her.
As a loving wife and mother, she created a glorious home for her family, bringing fun and joy to everyone who entered in. She encouraged those she loved to reach out for the best in life, to continue to learn and take joy in what was good. She spent her energies to help us learn how to manage all the worst, the heartache, disappointments, the unfairness, and the failures.
She never ceased to love. And that love reached out to lift and help many adopted children and strays which her own children brought into her home. Her table always had an extra plate (often plates) and plenty of food.
She loved a good virgin strawberry daiquiri, but best of all never blinked at starting a meal with dessert. Funeral services will be held on Thursday, November 15, 2018 at 11 a.m. at the Waterfall Canyon Ward, 3254 Polk Ave, Ogden, Utah. Friends may visit with family on Thursday from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. at the church.
Services entrusted to Lindquist’s Ogden Mortuary.
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