Dona Reva Ponsness

Dona R. Ponsness passed into the arms of her loving savior on April 3, 2018, at Good Samaritan Nursing Home in Olathe. Dona was born on August 8,1923, in Hamilton, Missouri, the daughter of Ora and Mettie Crist Cox. She moved to a farm in Wellsville, Kansas, at the age of 5 with her parents and older brothers Thurston, Wilbur, and Cliff. Joan, Dona's younger sister, joined the family in 1932. Dona was very smart and graduated from Wellsville High School in 1941. Dona was baptized at the Bethel Baptist Church in 1945.

Dona will always be remembered for being an extremely hard worker, an outstanding seamstress and an amazing cook and pie maker that made all members of the family and friends anxious to be served. She was humble about the many compliments that came from her talents, whether it was making clothes for all of her children, blankets for grand babies, or quilts from left over material.

Being a member of Paola Baptist Church for over 58 years, she thoroughly enjoyed being part of the team to serve dinners for the church, an active member of her Sunday School class, watching her children being baptized and taking part in various church events. She loved to sing hymns whether on key or off, but music was an important part of her life.

Dona married Orlen Bond in 1942 and from this union their first son Ronnie was born, followed by Ray after WWII, then Randy and finally, a blessed daughter, Reva. With her family complete, she became a seamstress beside her sister Joan, and later she tirelessly worked at the Paola Hospital by night to care for her children by day. She also worked and retired from Miami County Home Health and spent many hours counseling young mothers on how to care for their new babies.

Dona married Manual Medlin who preceded her in death. She married Harold Ponsness in April of 1995 and began a new chapter of her life that will always be remembered as some of her happiest times. Together Dona and Harold traveled all over the United States and meticulously scrapbooked about their many adventures. They enjoyed simple pleasures of watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy seeing who could answer the questions or solve the puzzles first. They loved antiquing and sought out reamers and corn lids as their special items to purchase. This hobby turned into over 300 reamers and a large number of corn lids, all with a story of how they were found. It gave them a great amount of joy. Dona never missed a KU basketball game on television. She was quite the fan.

Together Dona and Harold were grandparents to 9 grandchildren, Mitch, who passed away at the age of 18, Clint, Logan, Raegan, Cameron, Josh, Lacey, Steffani, and Tanner. These grandchildren helped bring numerous memories from basketball to barrel racing, swim meets, academic honors and graduations. These grandchildren also brought to her the joy of being a great grandmother. In total she had 20 great grand-babies sit on her lap and knew another was coming in June.

Dona was visited by one of her daugher-in-laws just days before she died. It was a good day for Dona and she was awake and talkative. As she went to the dinner table she bowed her head and said a prayer that was meaningful and purposeful and a surprise since she hadn't been talking that much. Dona said, Dear God, You are the one who knows the day of ones death and all about our lives. Thank you for taking care of the details and for the food that is to come. Amen. It was a powerful moment and a statement of her trust in her Lord, her provider and comforter. We will miss many things about her and yet find a great peace in knowing she is with Jesus and those who she loved and have gone before her.

Funeral Services will be at Paola First Baptist Church, 207 E. Wea St., Paola, KS, Saturday April 7, 2018. Visitation at 1:00 followed by the service at 2. Burial will follow in the Wellsville Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to Paola First Baptist Church.

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