Bette Donahey, 82, says, “My words of wisdom are to find something positive each day in every person and in everything.”
By Susan Thompson | Lake Panorama Times
Mary Elizabeth Pate was born in Whittier, California. Better known as Bette Donahey, this California native has lived in Panora for more than 50 years. The tale of how and why she landed in Panora, and is still here, is a fun one.
Dan Donahey’s uncle was a key player in the early days of Lake Panorama’s development. Dan and Bette Donahey spent many afternoons on the lake on John Donahey’s boat.
“My parents owned the Beverly Rose Market, and my brother and I both worked there,” Donahey says. “The Beverly Rose was a grocery store a little smaller than the one we have here in Panora. Just beer, no wine or liquor. I worked as a checker, stock person and sweeper-upper. My brother mostly worked in the meat department. Beef came in as a side and was cut up in store. Chickens came in whole and had to be cut up.”
From Whittier High School, Donahey went to UCLA where she was a member of Alpha Phi. She graduated from California State University at San Jose and did graduate work at California State University Long Beach.
Daniel Edward Donahey grew up on a farm southwest of Panora, graduating from Panora High School in 1954. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Iowa State University in 1958.
After graduation, Dan moved with some of his buddies to Santa Monica, California, to work for Douglas Aircraft. They shared an apartment on Ocean Boulevard and enjoyed the nice weather.
An early photo of the Dan and Bette Donahey family, taken in the Panora home they rented beginning in 1973, before purchasing it three years later. Mike and Lisa were born in California. Mark was born in Iowa.
For Douglas Aircraft, Dan worked on the Nike Zeus. This missile was being developed with the idea it could intercept incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. He was transferred to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to test the missile. Later, he was to be assigned to a base in the Marshall Islands to further test the missile.
Meanwhile, back in Iowa, Dan was drafted into the Army. The Guthrie County Draft Board refused a deferment requested by Douglas Aircraft.
“Douglas Aircraft had never been refused,” Bette says. “Company officials were going to protest, but in true Guthrie County style, Dan didn’t want to make waves and went to basic training. During that time, his security clearance was being upgraded to a Q Security Clearance. He was in the Army for 91 days, and all clearances lapse after 90 days. He couldn’t go to the Marshall Islands without a Q Clearance.”
The new U.S. space program did not require a clearance.
“That is how he started working at North American Rockwell,” Bette says. “At North American, he worked on the Saturn V Launch Vehicle that took the astronauts into space and to the moon. When you see the separation of the stages on the Saturn V, the ring separating from the vehicle and floating off into space is what Dan worked on.”
This family photo in front of the Donahey home in Panora was taken in 2010. Left to right, Steve Stacy, Jennifer Stacy, Lisa Donahey Stacy, Allison Stacy (standing), Danielle Stacy (on wall); Ashley, Mark, Dan and Bette Donahey. Sitting on the wall, Katie, Megan, Bridget and Julianne Donahey. Back row, Mike, holding Kelly, and Carolyn Donahey.
“Dan loved his work on the space program. He spent a lot of time at Cape Canaveral and with different suppliers around the country,” Bette says. “When that ended, he worked on the ejection system of the B-1 Bomber. He wasn’t as excited about bombers as he had been about space travel. He also wasn’t fond of the one-hour daily commute, each way, on the freeway.”
By this time, the couple had two children.
“My parents were gone,” Bette says. “If we moved to Iowa, the kids would have grandparents, there wouldn’t be a long commute, and Dan wouldn’t be traveling all over the country. Besides, Dan never liked California.”
ON TO PANORA
In 1973, the family packed up and headed for Panora, leaving behind the only place Bette had ever lived and her extended family.
“I looked on the move as a great adventure,” Bette says. “Dan took a leave of absence from his job for one year. If it didn’t work out, we could go back. I thought our life would be better. But Panora was a bit of an adjustment, to say the least. I had no idea of the cultural difference between southern California and rural Iowa.”
Bette Donahey stands by a small building near her home that was an ice house for the original owners. The Donahey children used the building as a playhouse.
“We had visited Panora several times, but we always came in the summer. Our first winter here was terrible,” Bette says.
“I was used to having a supermarket a block away,” she adds. “In Panora, there were two little grocery stores, nothing like what I was used to. In California, there was a mall in every direction. The Pacific Ocean was 10 miles away.”
It wasn’t an easy transition for Dan, either.
“He had been gone for 15 years,” Bette says. “Things had changed in Panora and in farming practices. There was a big learning curve. We cashed out our investments in California and bought farmland here. In the early days, Dan would farm our own land plus land he rented from others. He had a cow-calf herd and fed calves to market. He later sold the cow-calf operation with the pasture land and did grain farming only.”
Dan served on the boards of Panora State Bank and Panora Co-op. He retired from fulltime farming in 2007. By then, the couple owned a townhome in the Phoenix area. Bette says, “Winters spent in Phoenix would have been perfect had the coffee group from the co-op been there.”
Bette Donahey always wanted a convertible. When she was 75 years old, Dan finally agreed she could have one, and she purchased this 2017 Mustang convertible in Phoenix. Since then, she has used it for annual trips between her Panora home and her Phoenix condo.
“We were married for almost 54 years,” Bette says. “Our children wondered how two totally opposite types of people could get together and make it work for that many years.”
The Donaheys have three children. Mike and his family live in Phoenix. He graduated from the University of Iowa and is an attorney and a managing partner with Snell and Wilmer. He and his wife, Carolyn, have five daughters. Megan graduated from Princeton University and works for Netflix; Julianne graduated from the University of Iowa and is a special education teacher; Katie graduated from Yale University in May and will work for Accenture in Washington, D.C; Kelly, Katie’s twin, has autism and lives in Phoenix; Bridget will be a senior at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Lisa lives in Clive. She graduated from Loyola University Chicago and is employed at Saddlery Properties where she has worked for 25 years. Lisa has three daughters. Danielle is a sophomore at the University of Iowa; twins Allison and Jennifer are juniors at Dowling Catholic High School.
To celebrate her 80th birthday two years ago, Bette Donahey took 11 of her family members to Italy and France for two weeks. From left to right around the table, Ashley, Mike and Carolyn Donahey; Steve Stacy; Bette, Mark and Katie Donahey; Allison, Danielle, Lisa and Jennifer Stacy.
Mike and Lisa graduated from Panora Linden, and Mark graduated from Panorama Community Schools. Their mother taught in both districts.
“I was the home economics and health teacher in junior high and in high school. I taught in the same room for 27 years,” Bette says. “I was the Future Homemakers of America advisor and the junior class and prom advisor. I retired in 2001 when Mark graduated from college.”
PANORA MANSION
On St. Patrick’s Day 1973, the Donahey family moved into a colonial house located on 15 acres on the southwest corner of Panora near the Middle Raccoon River.
Dan and Bette Donahey are shown near the Tovrea Castle in Phoenix. For several years, members of the PALS exercise group who traveled to the southwest in the winter would get together for a PALS snowbirds gathering in Phoenix. This photo was taken during one of those gatherings.
“The house was built by the Ford Maddick family in 1931. Mrs. Maddick married a man from Panora. She was from Kansas with oil money. There was no home suitable for her here,” Donahey says. “She liked this site, but there was already a house here. She bought the property, knocked down the other house and built this one. Mr. Maddick was a horse trader, so she built him the two-story horse barn on the property.”
After Mr. Maddick died, Mrs. Maddick sold the house to the Paul Nolan family. Paul Nolan died of a heart attack shortly after. The family moved to Des Moines but kept the house for weekends and summer. Mrs. Nolan died, making it possible for the Donaheys to rent the house. They purchased it in 1976.
“The house was of great interest to the community,” Donahey says. “Mrs. Maddick did not socialize much, so very few people were invited inside. There were rumors of marble floors and a dumb waiter, which were not true. There was a bell on the floor in the dining room that could be pressed to summon the maid. When we moved in, everyone wanted to see inside. It was a steady parade.”
The two-story house has a full basement. Many of the chandeliers are original, as is the crown molding, woodwork and doors. New windows recently were installed on the outside of the home, but the original wood windows remain on the inside with copper curtain rods at the top. The original kitchen cabinets, which were an antique green color when the family moved in, were restored and rearranged so a dishwasher and larger refrigerator could be added.
Outside, a concrete patio was added to the west. Red bricks salvaged from Guthrie Center streets were used to create pathways around the house and gardens area. Donahey hires someone to mow the large yard, but she handles all the landscape beds and gardens that surround the house.
“Our family has occupied this house for 52 years,” Bette says. “I love the yard and the garden. It is a perfect place.”
LAKE PANORAMA TIES
Lake Panorama’s Donahey Drive honors John Donahey, who was Dan Donahey’s uncle. John Donahey was a Panora attorney who provided legal assistance in the early 1960s to the Guthrie County Lake Development Company. In 1965, he was one of four men to incorporate as Mid-Iowa Lakes; he later served as president of the corporation.
“Dan’s uncle was the attorney who met with the landowners in the area of the proposed lake,” Bette says. “He got all of the options on the land needed so Lake Panorama could become a reality. He was bitten by dogs, shot at and cursed, but he persisted and did what it took.
“I remember visiting Panora before we moved here, and he would explain where things would be. The dam will be here; the lake will be here. We weren’t sure about things, but one year there was water in the lake,” she says. “We spent many an afternoon on the lake in his boat. Most of the shoreline was vacant. Lake Panorama was in its early stages, and we watched it grow. I wish he could see it now.”
Lake Panorama RIZ’s first wetland was made possible due to a 2014 land swap agreement with Dan and Bette Donahey.
“We had some farmland with a fairly big ditch that eventually drained into Lake Panorama,” Bette says. “We traded some land with the LPA so the project could keep silt from the lake.”
This land trade allowed RIZ to construct the Helen’s Cove Wetland, which is located on Sage Trail, just north of 200th Road. RIZ has since constructed two other wetlands and is in the process of permitting additional wetlands to improve Lake Panorama’s water quality.
The Donahey family still owns farmland in Guthrie County.
“We lease the land to Mills Enterprises, who has been our only tenant,” Bette says. “We count on Mark Mills to manage and care for the land. All of our farmland uses no till and cover crops.”
Bette owns a townhome on Karen Drive at Lake Panorama, which she currently has rented. She is a long-time supporter of Friends of Lake Panorama, having made direct donations to specific projects, plus donating auction items and sponsoring a table at Beach Ball fundraisers.
PANORA BOOSTER
In 2010, Bette Donahey was recognized at the annual Panorama Days as Panora’s Citizen of the Year.
“I think the big thing that led to that honor was the downtown enhancement and town square projects,” Donahey says. “I contacted Iowa State University and invited architecture students to meet with Main Street property owners and work with them to make decisions on how to improve the appearance of their buildings. The students provided drawings of possible improvements that fit the owners’ budgets.”
Bette Donahey applied to Prairie Meadows and received a grant to help pay for new concrete on the town square. She also helped with the 500 Club where donors gave $500 over five years for the improvement of the town square. A plaque in the Panora gazebo lists the 500 Club donors.
“I also helped encourage folks to purchase benches for the square and along Main Street,” Donahey says. “I think folks were sick of me asking for things.”
The Donaheys have a bench on the square and also were 500 Club members. After Dan’s death, money given in his memory was used to purchase 10 lights that were installed in the town square near the gazebo and the central seating area. The metal structures feature outdoor images such as cornstalks, coneflowers, sunflowers, pheasants and more.
Bette Donahey has been active in several area groups over the years, including PALS, P.E.O., Panora Garden Club, Panora Retirement Home Board, Women’s Service Organization, St. Cecelia’s Parish Council and Prairie Piecemakers.
On nice days, Bette often is seen driving around Panora in her 2017 white Mustang convertible with the top down.
“I always wanted a convertible, but life got in the way. When I was 75, I told Dan I should have a convertible, and he finally agreed. I bought it in Phoenix in 2018, and we drove it home to Iowa. It has gone from Panora to Phoenix and back each year since,” she says.
Travel is a highlight of Bette’s life.
“I like to travel, but I couldn’t do much until late in my life,” she says. “Dan didn’t like to travel; he hadn’t seen all of Guthrie County yet. He told me to travel all I wanted, just not to make him go.”
Over the years, Donahey has enlisted a host of friends as travel companions.
“When we were 65, Bonnie Nelsen and I hiked Rim to Rim at the Grand Canyon. Linda Wendl, Kathy DeLucca, Bonnie and I climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge at sunset,” she says. “And I made a phone call from the top of Angels Landing at Zion National Park.”
When Donahey turned 80, she took 11 of her family members to Italy and France for two weeks.
“We stayed in Chiavari, Italy, where we think my grandmother was born. It is a small town south of Genoa by the sea. It was great fun,” she says. “I will continue to travel as long as I have fun people to go with, interesting places to see, and the good health to do it.”
Now 82 years old, Donahey says she can’t believe she is this old.
“My words of wisdom are to find something positive each day in every person and in everything,” she says. “I didn’t always do that, and that is one of my regrets.”
Looking back, Donahey says moving to Panora was the best decision she and Dan ever made.
“Of all the small towns Dan could have brought me to, Panora was definitely the best,” she says. “I have lots of friends here. I have wonderful neighbors. I love to work in the yard. I can travel and come home again. What more could a person want?”