Donna Bishop Lindquist died at her home in Gaithersburg, Maryland on February 8, 2022 at the age of 73 after a prolonged illness. She passed away peacefully in the presence of her beloved sons.
Donna was born in Oak Park, Illinois on March 10, 1948, the oldest of four children to Irene Mary Ostrowski and William Worth Bishop. She spent her childhood in the bucolic setting of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, living first in town and then on a converted dairy farm where her family kept cats (she named hers Tiger), dogs, goats, and horses. Donna graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1970 with a degree in education. After teaching several years in Wisconsin, Donna – ever intrepid – moved to Tucson, pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Arizona. There she met and in a desert chapel wed her late husband, David Lindquist, who was pursuing a PhD in marine zoology at the University of Arizona. Donna lovingly accompanied David’s early scientific adventures with remarkable grit and devotion, notably spending summers camping in a tent seaside on the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, spearfishing for food and driving to town for water.
When David became a professor at UNC-Wilmington, the couple moved to North Carolina in 1975. Donna lived in Wilmington, North Carolina for the following 28 years, raising two sons, Greg and Bill. She continued teaching in North Carolina, while at the same time earning a master’s degree in education at UNCW focusing on literacy and actively parenting in her sons’ schools and Boy Scout troop. She also cherished her participation and lifelong friends in the choir at St. Mark Catholic Church. When David received a Fulbright to conduct research in Europe, the family spent the summer of 1988 living in Salzburg, Austria amid the settings of the American musical The Sound of Music. They visited Germany, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Venice, and Donna required her two young boys to keep a daily journal, which they later came to appreciate immensely, despite their protests at the time. Generously devoted to caring for her late husband during his prolonged illness, Donna kept David going for ten years before he passed away in 2001.
After her sons finished college in North Carolina in 2003, Donna fearlessly fulfilled her long-held dream of returning to her treasured desert of Tucson, where she resumed teaching until her 2008 retirement. She then enjoyed years of community service with the Oro Valley Police Department, cherishing her adventures driving Crown Vics and building friendships with fellow volunteers. Donna’s return to the east coast in 2018 was bittersweet: while she missed Tucson, family was always paramount, and she wanted to be closer to her children and young grandchildren, Sophie and Quinn.
All who knew Donna were familiar with her remarkable spirit, tenacity, and sheer strength of will. She was a woman of strong principles, character, and integrity. If there was a way to do something, she would find it. Doubters did so at their own peril. She also had a sharp eye for detail, a scrupulous sense of organization, and a fierce talent for negotiation and thrift. Her parents being children of the depression, she never wasted food or resources. She made great effort to care for her belongings, and she was a consummate archivist, creating family photo albums and many documents of her life.
Donna never sought recognition for her many acts of generosity, care, and loyalty; her good deeds and their impact were their own quiet rewards. Donna’s greatest joy was motherhood, and she was thrilled to become a grandmother late in life. She lived to practice a radical form of care: even during her illness when her sons were caring for her, she insisted on cooking and baking for them until she no longer could. In her sons’ lives she instilled her own style of indefatigable labor, ethics of care, and ebullient resilience; demonstrated the importance of education, hard work, and grit; and through example taught them the value of integrity.
Especially proud of the adults her sons had become, she was always available to lend an ear, offer her sage advice, or drop whatever she was doing to help accomplish any project, however big or small. While Donna will be dearly missed, her legacy and generosity will live on through her children, grandchildren, and the many students whose lives she touched over four decades of teaching. She was truly one of a kind.
Donna is survived by her son Gregory David Lindquist and his fiancé Theresa Michelle Daddezio of Brooklyn, NY; her son William James Lindquist and his wife Soojin Jennifer Lee and two grandchildren Sophie and Quinn of Bethesda, MD; and her sisters Patricia Bishop of Rochester, NY and Nancy and Blue Gill of Lake Geneva, WI. Donna was preceded in death by her parents, husband, and brother Glenn Bishop.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in her memory to Montgomery Hospice of Rockville, MD (montgomeryhospice.org).