Donald Slinkard

1925 - 2023

Donald Slinkard
August 31, 1925 - August 26, 2023
Fresno, California - Donald R. Slinkard
Wrote This Obituary
He was a child of the Depression who pitched hay, milked cows, went to war, fathered four children he loved, traveled when time and money allowed, studied journalism at Fresno State and became a newspaperman. He died peacefully at home on 8/26/23 surrounded by his children, five days short of his 98th birthday.
Don was born in Bakersfield Aug. 31, 1925 to Earl and Lella LeMaster Slinkard, brother to Gaynor Rozier and Richard and Theodore Slinkard, none of whom survive. His parents were abject victims of the Depression. In 1938 his father used the $2,000 settlement from a construction accident that crippled him for life for down payment on a two-bedroom, two-bath house on 40 acres of alfalfa at Temperance and Butler, seven miles east of Fresno. The second bathroom was an outhouse. Fresno was the queen city of the San Joaquin Valley. Courthouse Park had hitching posts. Fulton Street bustled.
He rode the bus to Sanger Union High School, class of 1943, never absent in four years. Drafted at 18 in World War II, he became a rifleman in Company A, 58th Armored Infantry Battalion, 8th Armored Division, in Europe. His division acquired three battle stars and he a Combat Infantry Badge. He was en route to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan when A-bombs stopped the war.
Thanks to the GI Bill and hospitable parents, he graduated from Fresno State College in 1950. Don (a.k.a. Slink) spent 40 years with McClatchy newspapers - sports writer, courthouse reporter, copy editor - retiring in 1990 as managing editor of The Fresno Bee, the No. 2 newsroom job.
He had three wives: Carol Classic (24 years, mother of his children), Jill Rosenberg (six years) and Donna J. Smith (since 2002), exceptional women and cat persons all, not to overlook six years in between with the indefatigable Nené Casares.
He leaves daughters Donna Hale of San Jose and partner Jeff Easter of Santa Cruz; and Carolyn Robinson of Fresno and Mike Davies of Fowler; sons David of Anacortes, WA and John of Fresno. As befits a feminist, his grandchildren are girls: Rashawn Slinkard of Dallas, Whitney and Ashlyn Slinkard of Turlock, Taylor and Carly Robinson of Fresno and Michelle Tarazi and husband Samy Tarazi of San Jose. Their son Remy and daughter Holly are his great-grandchildren. A stepdaughter Julie Ichikawa of Japan, her husband Noboru and their children, Keishi and Aika, survive, as do stepson Grant Smith of Napa and daughter Taylor of Sacramento, plus six nieces, three nephews and three cousins.
Don loved to get in a car to see what lay over the next hill. He collected road maps and used them. He drove coast-to-coast three times, a half-dozen times to Iowa and Kansas and many times up and down 99 and I-5 to the Northwest. He spent at least one overnight in all 50 states. He served in Europe for six months during the war and for a year in the Army of Occupation, as a ticket agent at the Army's rail station in Bremerhaven, Germany. Later travels took him from Singapore to St. Petersburg and New Zealand to Nome and three times to baseball's shrine, Cooperstown, NY.
No services, his edict. He willed his body to the UCSF medical school, as his parents did. Don was a colleague of the late Mike McGarvin, the Bee photoengraver who founded Poverello House, to which donations are encouraged: P.O. Box 12225, Fresno 93777. Tell them Slink sent you.
Picked up his socks, never joined AARP or much else, a minimalist, leaned left, avoided Facebook, didn't tweet, drank tap water, found pop music insufferable, often watched TV with the sound off. Tree Fresno's Outstanding Volunteer in 2000. An art, food and wine buff. Fought folderol and rigmarole. Liked cars, indoor cats, Carmel, Giants, 49ers, the Philharmonic, In-N-Out, the name Fresno State University and his daily reward, a gin martini.
(The R stands for Ray.)
###