Celebrating a friend's 90th: L-R Kathryn Humrich, Isabelle Donohue, Nina Pierce,
and Shirley Wasson at Isabelle's birthday party this summer.

Gregory resident, Isabelle Donohue this summer celebrated her 90th birthday. Below is an article I wrote about her for News & Views in 2005, the year she turned 86. Isabelle continues to quilt, to nurture her family, and to treat them with her gift of quilting. She remains active in Plainfield United Methodist Church and the United Methodist Women. She's still quilting for her family, which now numbers 13 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren (six girls and 16 boys). Due to a recent fall, she's sidelined a bit...using a walker for the next couple of months while her hip heals. She's still able to bake, though, and plans to contribute to upcoming church bake sales.

Quilting a Life, a legacy

Celebrating Isabelle Donohue’s 86^th Birthday

By Susan Parcheta

Her life is a patchwork quilt, beautifully sewn together…fashioned with squares of love, joy, kindness, patience…all the attributes a family cherishes in their mothers and grandmothers.

Celebrating her 86^th birthday on July 11, Isabelle Donohue recalls a life spent in Livingston County’s Iosco Township.

Not only is she celebrating a long and fruitful life, she is intentionally celebrating her grandmother-hood and the wonder, in 2005, of having her entire family (she counts 54) living close-by. That, in this day and age, seems miraculous.

For many Americans, family is scattered in different states and across the globe. Isabelle treasures this amazing phenomenon of being surrounded by the family she loves. She’s sustained by the comfort of their support. And she wants to pass it on.

Working on finishing touches for a baby quilt for a granddaughter, Isabelle talks about the joys of being a grandmother at 86…to 13 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and three on the way.

How did this modern grandmother’s legacy begin? Isabelle’s parents, Floyd and Ida Hoffmyer Munsell, were married in 1902, settling on what is now the Munsell Centennial Farm on Bull Run Road.

“My father’s parents [William and Maria Van Gorder Munsell] died long before I was born,” says Isabelle.

“I had one brother [Lyle], he was 15 years older than me.” Growing up, she says, “I never really knew him, because he’d left home. But he was married [to Dorothy Eisle] just two years before I was. So their kids and my kids came right along together.”

“Lyle had one girl and four boys [Bill, Mary, Herb, Jerry and Al] and I had one girl and three boys [Kathryn, Dick, Bob and Jack].

As for grandmothers, she says, “I had a grandmother on my mother’s side of the family [Catherine Hoffmyer] until I was about six years old. I just barely remember her.”

Growing up without a grandmother’s influence, Isabelle determined that when she became one, she’d put her heart and soul into the job.

“I appreciate my grandchildren so much,” she exclaims. “It’s because I never had any grandmothers.”

As she turns 86, she feels blessed. “I was just hoping I’d live to enjoy my grandchildren and I certainly do enjoy them.” Now, she says, “I’m watching the great grandkids grow up, which is kind of fun, especially thinking about the different stages of their lives and seeing the differences.”

A fond memory is of summers with grandchildren underfoot in the big farmhouse…staying over at grandma’s, sleeping on the floor or wherever. They’d play on the front porch swing, she says, bumping the house in the process. For Isabelle, those were happy times.

When her son, Dick, moved to South Dakota with his family, she says, “We’d try to go to South Dakota once a year to see them.” Dick, who worked for May & Scofield, lived with them for three or four years while their daughter Hillary finished high school, then the family moved back to Michigan. Sadly, that was just a couple of years before Dick died of cancer at Thanksgiving time in 2000.

The family all gathered this Mother’s Day, surprising her with the Donohue longtime Sunday night supper tradition: Grilled cheese and pickle sandwiches. Delighted at the sentiment, Isabelle says the gang had several grillers going. She adds, smiling at the thought of it, “We must have gone through seven loaves of bread.”

Summertime also brings the annual family trek to northern Michigan’s Houghton Lake. Another Donohue tradition takes place: a weeklong get-together of kids and grandkids…relaxing, fishing, swimming, boating, skiing, and the camaraderie of sharing meals and gathering round the bonfire.

The family also shares Isabelle’s United Methodist connections. Isabelle grew up with ties to three area United Methodist congregations: Green Church on Bull Run Road, Parker’s Corner’s and Plainfield.

“When I was little, I went to Sunday School at the Green Church, went to Munsell School, and Fowlerville High School. So when I was old enough and could drive a car, my mother wanted to go to Parker’s Corners.”

Back then you could drive at age 14, Isabelle notes. “We had to get our own way to school.” She recalls sharing rides to the high school with neighborhood teens, including Russell and Kathryn Roberts.

“I’ve known Kathryn since I was a little girl,” she says. Kathryn [who married Ralph Humrich] is mother to Gary Humrich, who married Isabelle’s daughter, Kathryn (Kate).

“Going to Parker’s Corners church, she adds, “there were quite a few young people. Plainfield also had quite a few, and West Marion.” Eventually the Green Church merged with Parker’s Corners and West Marion, becoming what is now known as Trinity United Methodist Church on Iosco Road at Bull Run. Plainfield, West Marion and Parker’s Corners (a circuit) all had the same minister, notes Isabelle.

“We had a youth fellowship from all churches. I met Jack at the meetings of the MYF. Jack was six years older than I was. I married him after high school and we lived on Bradley Road ever since.”

They married at her parents’ home on Bull Run in 1937. Isabelle was 18. “I was out of high school in June, and married in September,” she says. Jack died in 1999.

Except for a short time living in the Greening house on Bradley Road, the Donohues lived in Jack’s family home their entire married life.

For a time after Jack’s mother died, grandfather Cornelius lived there with them. “The only help I had,” recalls Isabelle, “was Florence Dutton, a widow. She’d come down and help cut green beans, canning, etc.”

“My dad lived alone on Bull Run, so my kids had two grandpas awhile,” Isabelle says, “but no grandmothers.”

The hundred-year-old Donohue home is now the focal point of the growing Donohue clan. Their homes are popping up all around it. Those of us who are neighbors and friends, affectionately call it “Donohueville.”

“Everybody lives right here,” Isabelle proudly proclaims. Two children [Bob and Gloria Donohue, Kate and Gary Humrich] and four grandchildren have built homes on the Donohue property. Son Jack lives in Plainfield, daughter-in-law Mary Donohue in Fowlerville, and just one granddaughter out of state. Another grandson plans a “Donohueville” home this fall.

How does she keep up with it – being the matriarch of such a large, close-knit family? Isabelle says she’ll be fine…”as long as my mind stays clear.”

“I feel pretty good,” she says, noting that she still has the same work ethic she’s managed under all her life. “I think I could outwork most any of them,” she says, laughingly, as she thinks about the kind of life kids have nowadays.

“Some of these young kids think they work so hard. They don’t know the half of it,” she declares.

If anything, Isabelle’s clan has been raised to the tune of that work ethic. For 25 years she worked at McPherson Hospital in Howell in the central supply department.

They’ve watched her pull through and manage a heart condition that appeared in 1967, as well as bouts with asthma that she first experienced as a child.

They’ve also known her passion for church and community…her work with United Methodist Women, her many roles in church leadership, years of working at the renowned Plainfield Chicken Suppers.

Many of her family are active, as she has been for 65 years, in the Plainfield United Methodist Church congregation. Several grandchildren were married there, as well.

They’ve followed along, as she’s traveled her spiritual journey. Recalling a memorable time for her within the church, Isabelle says, “I enjoyed when we were mentors to the youth who were joining the church.”

Her family has watched a mother and grandmother, their mentor and friend, remain true to her purpose…to nurture, guide and comfort those who come after her.

They’ve witnessed her humility, as she learned of the stained glass window they’d had inscribed with her name Isabelle I. Donohue, in her honor at Plainfield, the church that has meant so much.

“My family loves to surprise me with things,” she says, remarking about the window. “That was for my 82^nd birthday.”

They’ve been moved by her grace…in struggling with that honor, yet accepting their appreciation for her, as much as she appreciates them. It’s wonderful, she reflects, to be able to experience such an honor while you’re alive.

Isabelle works steadily, contributing her part to her daughter-in-law’s quilt, a gift for her daughter, Isabelle’s granddaughter.

Quilting a lifetime becomes a labor of love. A family, like a quilt, is a work of art…wondrously pieced together by the life of each member. The legacy of Isabelle Donohue and her indomitable spirit is strong in all those pieces, so lovingly stitched.

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Susan Parcheta may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it