Donna Lee Saunders

Donna Lee Beaversdorf Saunders, age 75, passed away December 17, 2024 at Stormont Vail Hospital in Junction City, KS. 

Donna learned to be a gentle spirit with robust pride and determination from her Mother, Bernadine. The eldest of 8 children, she set clear boundaries with love, compassion and time limited understanding. She loved her brothers and sisters and all 16 nieces and nephews as evidenced by telling stories and showing pictures of them as often as visitors would listen. 

She was born in Illinois and, along with her family, lived in various states including Wisconsin and Florida before settling in Texas. 

She graduated Valedictorian from Amherst, TX Highschool in 1967. She took that extremely bright mind to St. John’s College, Winfield Kansas where she demonstrated her academic as well as practical intelligence daily. While she was learning Greek and Latin, she also took the time to help her less academically gifted friends with German, Bible History, philosophy and any other subject with which friends were struggling. She would pass through the study lounge at all hours of the morning with a cup of coffee in hand and a gentle, “how’s it going” which always translated into, “do you need any help”?

She was accepted to Northwestern University (7% acceptance rate) which is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois with their main campus along the shores of Lake Michigan in the Chicago metropolitan area. She was also working in an effort to put her, then, husband through the same school. Both were studying for their Ph.D.’s.

Donna went from Illinois to California and from California to Nebraska and then to Herington Kansas. When she was in Nebraska, she became a frequently published poet who wrote with great insights and deep understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the human spirit. She worked as a mobility aid in a Nebraska nursing home for years and never tired of talking about what she learned from those with whom she interacted – both individuals needing her time and support as well as the staff. People in Herington will know her from her years working behind the Deli Counter at Barnes as well as her 21 years working with the Herington Public Schools. Ah, the stories she could tell of both students and staff and families… but she didn’t. She’d just smile and shake her head.

Those of you who know Donna will know that she loved horses and that her passion was to take in any stray cat that needed warmth, love and nourishment. While that didn’t always work to her benefit, her kindness wouldn’t let her turn her back. Her sympathies didn’t end with animals. She donated to multiple charities throughout her life, not just once or twice but monthly.

Donna was quiet and unassuming but she will be missed by many colleagues, friends (some of whom were life-long) as well as her family. She was preceded in death by her mother, Bernadine Beaversdorf and Father, Fred, her sister Esther Waltermire and her brother Samuel Beversdorf. She is survived by: her brother Daniel and his wife Barbara of New Braunfels, TX; her brother Fredrick and his wife Cynthia of Wylie, TX; her brother Marcus and his wife Sarianne of Plainview, TX; her sister Toni and her husband Kenneth King of Muleshoe, TX; and her brother Jesse and his wife Kammie of Lubbock, TX; as well as 16 nieces and nephews.

Memorials: to the Herington Public Schools, USD 487.