Donna Jean Huff, nee Millar, was born on Sept 2, 1952, to Richard Warren Millar and Navora Jeraldene (Ward) Millar in Sacramento, California, at McClellan Air Force Base. The second of four daughters and one brother, she was the family's peacemaker. Donna was innocent and naïve in many ways and didn't fit in with the more worldly kids in school. She loved all of her family, though she didn't necessarily get along with them. Her mother was especially hard on Donna as she was growing up because she didn't "fit in". Donna LOVED the Lord and hungered to know Him.
At age 3, she wanted desperately to learn how to pray. A missionary couple from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints happened upon the Millar family when Richard was stationed with the Air Force in Anchorage, Alaska. During that one meeting, the couple taught the family how to pray and the spirit that was there remained with the family until they were eventually baptized as members of the Church in Montgomery, Alabama 9 years later. As a young child, Donna had an "older brother" with whom she played in a remote grove of trees near her home. She believed all her life that the older brother was the Lord, Jesus Christ.
The family moved around the central Alabama area quite a bit after her dad got out of the Air Force. He taught flying lessons and was a manager of many small airports in that area. His passion was flying, and he was very good at it. But that meant that he was gone most of the time, either flying a corporate airplane or teaching ground school. Donna loved her father and was the closest of the children to him.
As Donna matured into young womanhood, she fell in love with one Blake Lee Poulsen and married him. She moved to Idaho with him to be near his family. Sadly, the marriage didn't last, and Blake sent her home, carrying their child in her womb, and the divorce papers followed shortly thereafter. The townspeople of Montevallo, Alabama, where Donna lived, thought that she should have a husband to help her raise her son, Donald Dorrough Poulsen. They pressured her into marrying the town's "fireman of the year", Larry Glenn Blankenship. She soon found out that he was mentally unstable and left that marriage as expeditiously as possible. And she was pregnant again. She moved back home once more and soon had David Wayne Blankenship to raise on her own.
Single parenthood lasted for several years, until she met one Jack David Huff, a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints serving in her branch for the last part of his mission. She did not like Elder Huff, but he liked her very much. After his mission, he returned to Montevallo, Alabama, to accept a job offer at Holt's Furniture Store in nearby Alabaster. That job didn't last long as the store closed almost immediately after Jake's return. But they dated and married on Feb 29, 1980. They worked together at Times Printing Company in Montevallo: she as the receptionist and he as the Bindery worker. They added Rebekah Helene Huff to the family and moved from the housing project into a two-bedroom house just down the street from her parents' home.
The crazy ex-husband caused enough stress on the young family that they moved from Alabama to Utah to live briefly with Jake's single mom. She was still raising Jake's younger siblings, but was willing to have Jake and the family move in with her until they could get a place of their own. After 6 weeks with Helene, Jake's mom, they found an apartment in a 4-plex and moved out to start their own lives together.
Donna found work as a Human Resources secretary for Nice Corporation in Salt Lake City, and Jake worked for Bonneville Satellite Corp after completing training as a radar technician for the Utah Air National Guard at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi. Eventually, they moved from Bountiful, Utah, into their own home in Layton, Utah. They lived there for about four years before Jake accepted a position with the Federal Aviation Administration in Eugene, OR, where they lived until Donna's recent passing.
While working for Nice Corp. in Salt Lake City, Donna went from secretary to HR department manager. She was so loved and respected that, when the Salt Lake office was closed, she was the only employee retained by the company and was moved to the corporate headquarters in Ogden, Utah. There she worked as an executive secretary for the CFO, then in the order processing dept until her health prevented her from working at all. It was during this period of time in Layton that Donna's health problems began to manifest themselves.
In 1989, Donna had surgery in the spring. While in recovery, it was discovered that her thyroid was hyperactive. The doctors pressured her to have her thyroid gland killed off with radioactive iodine. That was the start of the multiple misdiagnoses of multiple doctors, which eventually led her to find the one doctor who really worked to understand her, who listened to and studied the whole person to reach the correct conclusions about her health: the REAL Dr. House. Dr. Theresa House was indeed a Godsend for Donna.
In late 1989, Jake was offered a position as a radar maintenance technician for the FAA in Eugene, OR, and they moved there in September and October of that year. Donna and the children followed a month after Jake reported for duty. In 1992, Donna was first diagnosed with fatty liver disease. It developed into full-blown cirrhosis in 2010. But that didn't explain the unrelenting fatigue.
Finally, in 2019, Dr. House put all of the pieces of the puzzle that were Donna in place, and Donna finally had the answers she had been seeking for decades. This brought her peace of mind. No, she was not just lazy. She had what used to be called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but is so much more than just that now. It is called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or ME for short. Added to cirrhosis, hepatic encephalopathy, and Graves' disease, and she was one very sick woman. She had been one to work circles around everyone.
For 12 years, she created the Santa Clara 1st Ward Relief Society Newsletter. She was her adult daughter's personal support worker, taking her grocery shopping and doing house cleaning for her learning disabled adult daughter….until she couldn't. It truly broke her heart to have to give up these activities. Donna had served in many callings for the church that she loved so dearly. Everyone who worked with her loved her passion for the work of the Lord and her example of love and service to all.
Donna had the heart of an artist, but in her own words, "could not draw a straight line with a ruler and a pencil." But she was introduced to stamping by her good friend, Fawn Redford. Donna called her "Teach" during their training sessions together. They became dear friends as they worked together on cards and other projects. Then a spark ignited a new artistic passion inside Donna, and she became a true artist. She designed works of art in the form of greeting cards, which to this day hang as framed artwork in many of the homes to which they were sent over the years. It truly broke her heart when she had to quit stamping. Her best friend, closer than a sister, Roni Finney, had become her stamping partner in later years, and even if Roni did all of the preparation work, Donna was too weak and too tired to enjoy stamping and creating any more. Her favorite saying in the last two decades of her life was, "Well, it ain't killed me yet."
The accumulated diseases in Donna's body finally did win out, and on Jul 20, 2021, at 12:22 A.M., she breathed her last breath and her spirit went into the welcoming arms of her "big Brother", the Savior, Jesus Christ. She is at peace with her parents, who preceded her in death, as well as her beloved Aunt Jean. And she has been reunited with all of her beloved fur babies, all of whom loved her as much as she loved them.
Donna is survived by her husband, Jack David Huff "Jake", her sons, Donald D. Millar, David W. Blankenship, and daughter, Rebekah H. Huff, as well as daughters-in-law, Kellee Millar, Audrey Blankenship, and son-in-law, Jared Morgan, grandchildren Beth, Heather, and Hunter Millar, and Cody and Alex Blankenship. She is also survived by sisters, Cathie Lynn Gisi, Diann Marie Millar, and Rickie Suzanne Allen, as well as her only brother, Daniel Morgan Millar, and his wife, Sandra Ann Millar, and all of the nieces and nephews whom she loved. Donna was worried that she was not serving the Lord during her last ten or fifteen years of life. But based on the responses from her Face Book friends, in particular the authors of the Pride and Prejudice books that she so enjoyed reading, she has served her Lord very well by being an example of the true believers: She was "willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as a witness of God at all times, and in all things, and in all places…even until death."
Mosiah 18: 9 Her words of peace and comfort, of love and kindness, affected people all around the world. If ever there was one who knew the Savior through her actions, words, and service, it was Donna Jean Huff. We love you, Donna, and we miss you.
https://www.altogetherfuneral.com/obituaries/d-477283/eugene-oregon/donna-jean-huff/july-2021