Senior Spotlight: Donald Lovgren

Small Town Boy

Donald Lovgren was born in 1928 in a small farming town in Nebraska. When his grandparents came over from Sweden, they purchased land plots for their children, which is what eventually would become the farm that Donald worked on as a kid.

This was a time when farms didn’t have motorized forms of transportation and had to use horses, and Donald remembers going into town by horse to deliver milk to local shops. In addition to no trucks, people also didn’t have freezers back then, making it very important that Donald made his runs into town before the milk would spoil.

A Harvard Graduate

Donald attended school in a one-room schoolhouse that taught grades 1-6 when he was a kid. He lived in a very small town with only a couple options for school in the area, so he had to go into town for high school.

Today most graduating senior classes are somewhere around 400 or more students, but Donald’s class was made up of just 22 children. The high schools in the area were named alphabetically, and luckily for Donald he got to attend and graduate from the school called Harvard! He still brags today about “graduating from Harvard”, and jokes that he’s technically not lying.

After high school Donald received a draft card and would have been drafted into World War II had it lasted just a little bit longer. However, just a few years later marked the start of the Korean War and Donald was sent off to basic training. After the war, Donald received GI Bill Benefits that allowed him to attend college. This was a blessing to Donald because otherwise his parents would have been unable to pay for his schooling. Donald attended The University of Nebraska and graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering.

The Manager of All Managers

Donald went on to take a job at Ohio Edison where he worked for 33 years and climbed the ranks to “Manager of Managers”. The company had to make up a title for him because they knew he should be promoted, but there was already a Vice President, so they came up with “Manager of Managers” to best describe all the hard work he was doing.

Donald and his wife had 5 children together, and there’s a great story behind how they got their last two. After having three boys, Donald’s wife really wanted a daughter, so they decided to try one more time for a girl. To their surprise, she became pregnant with twins and gave birth to both a boy and a girl. So whether or not the couple was expecting twins, they certainly got their little girl! Although his kids don’t live in the area today, Donald gets to see them every now and then when they make visits.

Donald has been with us for just about 2 weeks now, and he’s been enjoying the company so far. We’re so thrilled to have Donald here with us and look forward to the time ahead!

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