Donald O'Leary

Donald Francis O’Leary of West Jordan, Utah, age of 85, died on January 9th, 2025. He was born in Astoria, Queens, New York City and was the eighth of nine children. Donald lost a very brief but valiant fight against cancer. He fought until the very end. His courage and determination are an example to all that knew him.

He is preceded in death by his wife of 54 years, Judy Dorothy Braun.

Donald is survived by two children, Sean O’Leary (wife Norma) of West Jordan, Utah, and Kathleen Gates (husband Dennis) of Paker, Colorado, five grandchildren, Timothy O’Leary (wife Cassie), Jamie Gates, Lauren Payne (husband Jeremy), Joshua Gates, Madaline Gates, one great-grandson, Greyson O’Leary, and his sister Maureen Preta (husband Robert) of Shirley, New York.

Donald was always an adventurous spirit. When he was young the family lived in Washington Heights, NY. He had strict boundaries on how far away from the house he could travel. As he got older he would explore the train yards, climbing on the trains with his friends. One time he was running along the top of the train cars and did not realize he was on the last car and ran right off the end. 

On another day he was climbing on the rocks near the water by Riverside Drive, close to The Little Red Lighthouse. He found he was unable to climb back up and got stuck near the water, because the rocks were slick with moss, until passers by saw him and came to his rescue. 

Don would travel around with his older brother Bob. They would often walk across the Washington Bridge to Fort Lee and then up along the Palisades on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. These were long walks and tiring days but he enjoyed them immensely.

When he was about six years old, he very much wanted to have a bicycle for Christmas. On January 12th they brought him into his mothers room and showed him his newly born sister Maureen. They told him she was his Christmas present. Don loved his sister very much and took care of her. Once they had been walking up by the George Washington Bridge and Maureen was too tired to walk anymore. Donald carried her, on his back, for a mile to their home. Later in life Maureen sent him a small red model bicycle. It was their bond. She often told him that he was her hero.

When she was 5 and he was 11 they lived on Grattan street in Brooklyn, NY. One day their dog fell into a deep ditch. Don jumped in to help the dog get out. A crowd had gathered and people exclaimed, “What a brave young man.” Maureen said, “And he is my brother.”

In Kindergarten, he met another woman who would steal his heart, Judy. They knew each other all through grade school and were married on April 11, 1959. They were a team through thick and thin for the next 54 years. They supported each other in all their endeavors; he supported her in beauty school and as a hairdresser and later when she worked for the NYC school system. And she supported him in his decision to go to art school and then open his own business, Ridgewood Silk Screen.

His entrepreneurial endeavors started young. At the age of 10-12 he and some friends would get a wagon and metal trash can and fill it with ice and sodas and then go to the factories and sell it to the workers. During this time he would also shine shoes at the local bars and then try and avoid the gangs who would rob him if they found him. He would sometimes hide money in his shoe. When he was twelve, he was hired by the grocery store owner where he bought his sodas to drive a truck and deliver pies to his customers.

In those days it seemed that everyone worked for the Good-Humor Ice Cream Company. This required pouring the cream into molds and adding the stick before freezing. To get the popsicles out you had to dunk them in hot water. During long shifts, in the hot summer heat, they might deliberately leave the molds in the water a little too long and then flick them as they pulled them out. This would cover the person across from them in sweet sticky melted ice cream.

Another job he had, while studying at art school, was working at a Hoover Vacuum Cleaner repair shop. After cleaning and repairing the units they needed to check them to make sure they worked. At that time, there were two ports on vacuums, one for sucking dirt in and another for the exhaust. In order to make the day more interesting, he would jam a tennis ball in the end of the wand, turn it on and launch it out into the east river.

When Don and Judy married they attended the Brooklyn Branch of the LDS church where they made many friends who they kept throughout their lives, including Terry and Carol O’Brien. Terry was his best friend during most of his life. They frequently went on varmint hunting trips to upstate New York hunting woodchucks. As their families grew, they eventually brought their sons on these trips and were able to pass onto them many life lessons. Both families are still in contact with each other sixty five years later.

After art school, he worked for various small companies until he decided it was time to go into business for himself. Ridgewood Silk Screen, or The Shop as he called it, was a great place for him to express his artistic talents. He hired many people through the years and supported his growing family. If it could be printed on, he probably put ink on it, from magnetic chess pieces, wooden figures of civil servants, glass portrayals of various artists including his own designs, to control panels for the rockets that took us to the moon. In the last days of his life he expressed regret that there was never enough money. That was something his family never knew. He worked hard and always provided for their needs.

Don had a great love of music. He had an extensive LP collection which morphed into the largest collection of CD’s you have probably ever seen outside of a library. He was a fan of Frank Sinarta, The Rays, Harry Belfonte, Dan Fogleberg, Neil Diamond, John Denver, Johnny Mathis, and Diana Krall. In addition to listening to music he took up the guitar and harmonica. His house was filled with him playing and singing to many of Gordon Lightfoot's songs including Softly; Pussywillos, Cat-Tails; The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Sundown.

When he closed his business, he briefly worked with the custodial staff, who were responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of various high schools around the city. As part of that, he got his fireman's license that allowed him to run the boilers in the schools. He also learned locksmithing and keyed many of the locks in the schools. Eventually he moved on and worked, once again, as a graphic artist for the Wildlife Conservation Society doing most of his work at the Bronx Zoo but also supporting the Central Park Zoo, the Aquarium, Prospect Park and Queens Zoos and a conservation park in Tortuguero, Costa Rica.

Throughout his life he loved to take pictures of animals and landscapes. He took well over a hundred thousand pictures in his lifetime. He and Judy would travel all over the country on adventures and he always had his cameras ready, from NYC to the Oregon coast, Canada to the Smoky Mountains. He spent countless hours at any bird refuges he could find. He enjoyed photographing owls, birds of prey and water fowl, like the Great Blue Heron. Fifteen years ago he went on an expedition to the back hills of Wyoming to photograph North American Bighorn Sheep. He had long been fascinated by wild horses and longed to photograph them in the wild. In the last few years he went out to Utah’s West Desert at least five times to photograph the Onaqui Mountain Herd. This herd consists of almost 300 horses in a 200,000 acre area. He thoroughly enjoyed those trips to look for and photograph them. He had plans to visit a herd in Arizona where the horses run through a local stream.

In 2003, Don and Judy retired and moved from their lifelong home of NYC to Cache Valley in northern Utah. They lived in a beautiful home in Providence that overlooked the valley. They spent many hours doing landscaping and decorating, making it a reflection of their lives. While he spent his life doing many woodworking projects, he was able to relax and really enjoy building furniture once he retired.

Never one to stop thinking about his next business venture, Don set up shop at a local art gallery in Logan, Utah, where he began printing photos for them, as well as displaying his own photographs. The last few years he had set up shop in Murray where he was sorting through his photographs and preparing them for sale on the internet.

In 2023, he was so happy to meet his great-grandson Greyson, who he called his sunshine. He would light up whenever he saw him or photos of him. His family has vowed to take Greyson to Arizona, when he gets older, to see those horses his great-grandfather so much wanted to see.

When Don was not out on the trail searching for that perfect picture, or listening to his favorite music, he was reading books. His favorites were mystery and detective stories, but he also read many biographies.

His enthusiastic and adventurous spirit, as well as his tenacious determination to achieve the goals he set for himself will be missed by his friends and family in the years to come.

A viewing is scheduled on Saturday January 18th, from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., followed by Funeral Services at 12:30 p.m. at the LDS Meetinghouse at 155 N. 100 East, Providence, Utah.

Flowers can be sent to the Allen-Hall Mortuary 34 E Center St, Logan, UT 84321.

Memories and condolences may be shared and expressed at www.allenmortuaries.com.