Donald Carew Obituary

After battling cancer for seven years, Donald LaVerne Carew died Monday, August 10, 2009, at 8:53 pm., with his family at his side. Don was born May 4, 1932, in Racine, WI, to Earl and Irene Carew, who preceded him in death. He married his high school sweetheart, Marie McMahon, in 1950, in Jamestown. Don began working for the Department of Defense as a very young man. He was a remarkably talented person who was interested in the technical aspects of anything that came to his attention. He reached the highest levels (GM-scale) of civilian government service, where he had a long, 36-year career, ending in the field of explosive materiel safety and flight safety engineering for the U.S. Air Force. An accomplished rifle shot and trap-shooting gunner, he could shoot the head off a matchstick at 50 yards. He taught his eldest children chess and skill with a slide rule while they were still in grade school, and embraced computers late in life, after calculators and microchips replaced the analog techniques of yesterday. In retirement, Don took up sailing, becoming an expert on yachts of a type known as "blue water cruisers". He also traded stocks on his computer, taking fierce satisfaction in turning a profit in the abstruse and difficult avocation of day trading, and traveled with his wife in a C-class RV from the Florida Keys to Denali Park in Alaska. He was a driven and often uncompromising person, but those who knew him were uniformly richer for the experience. "..'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Ulysses by Tennyson Don is survived by his wife, Marie, and their eight children, fifteen grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren. He was especially proud of the fact that his children attained productive adulthood with a minimum of the troubles that attend adolescence, earning 10 degrees (college and advanced) across the eight children. "No black sheep here," he would say. Survivors include his sons David (Susan) of Colorado Springs; Thomas (Julie) of Leawood, KS; Michael (Susan) of Thornton, CO; John of Colorado Springs; and Patrick (Julye) of Dallas, TX; his daughters Mary Les) of Denver; Marie (Brian) of Fort Collins; and Barbara (Dale) of Colorado Springs. Grandchildren: Abigail (Brandon), Katelyn, Ladye Anne, Ted, Adam, Jacob, Sarah, Aaron, Alynn, Max, Nicholas, Anna, Owen, Mitchell, and Connor; and great-grandkids Braydon and Alaina Rose. The eldest of four children, Don is also survived by brothers Gene (Barbara) of Fargo, N.D., Ronald (Mary) Miller of Bismarck, N.D., and sister Sharon (Robert) Andersen of Kansas City, MO. A rosary service will be held Thursday, August 13, 2009, at 6:30 p.m., at Holy Trinity Catholic Parish, 3122 Poinsetta Drive, Colorado Springs. A funeral mass will be held Friday, August 14, 2009, 10 a.m., at Holy Trinity Parish. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to Cheyenne Village, 6275 Lehman Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, www.cheyennevillage.org.