Donna Grey (Miller) (Griffin) SMITH NEILSEN

MILLER, GRIFFIN, NEILSEN, SMITH, BESTIC, DUKE, PERRY

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 7/8/2010 at 20:03:53

Belmond Independent, Iowa
January 25, 2001

DONNA GREY (GRIFFIN) NEILSEN

Donna Grey, "Dee Gee", died in her Fresno, CA, home on Jan. 9, 2001. Funeral mass was celebrated at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Fresno, CA. Interment followed at Washington Colony Cemetery in Easton, CA. Dee Gee was born Sept. 10, 1945 to Capt. William and Dorothy Miller in Tucson, AZ. Capt. Miller was an Army Air Corp. bomber pilot flying B29's in the Pacific Theatre. He was shot down near the end of WW II just a few months before Dee Gee's birth. Her mother remarried in 1949 and Dee Gee grew up as part of the Griffin family in Belmond. After attending college in Iowa, she made a series of moves, living in Colorado, Oregon and Alaska before moving to Fresno in 1988 with her husband, Bill Smith, who died in 1998. In Nov. of 1999 she married Herman Nielsen of Caruthers, CA. They were raisin growers in the San Joaquin Valley. Dee Gee died 14 months after the wedding. Dee Gee worked for many years in the equipment financing industry. Her hobby in recent years was food presentation.

She was also preceded in death by her first husband, Bill Smith; father Capt. William Miller; mother, Dorothy Bestic Miller Griffin; and step-father, Gene Griffin. Survivors are her husband Herman Nielsen of Caruthers; daughter and son-in-law, Devan and Todd Duke and grandsons Austin and Talon Duke all of Sodaville, OR; brothers, Kevin Griffin of Lincoln, NE, Michael Griffin of Springbrook, IA, Timothy Griffin of Belmond and their families; her stepfamilies, the Smiths of Oregon; the Perrys and Nielsens of Caruthers, CA; and a total of nineteen grandchildren.