Dianna Mary Morgan

1944 - 2024

Nampa -

Diane Morgan

May 8, 1944-June 14, 2024

Diane was the first born of Trella and Carl Provence's three children. Even as a little girl she had a larger than life personality and was fiercely competitive.

Diane began competing in figure skating on roller skates as a pre-teen. With her mother and sister, Renae, she traveled to skate meets throughout California. She loved the costumes and the choreography, and she loved winning in the singles, pairs and fours (4 skaters in unison) categories. The Provence sisters both met their husbands and made many lifelong friends at the rink where Diane skated semi-professionally until her children were born. When she hung up her skates for good, Diane followed ice skating competitions and the Olympics, amazed at the athleticism and complexity that grew in her favorite sport.

Even before graduation day at Watsonville High School's Class of 1962, Diane was hooked on the Friday night races at the Watsonville fairgrounds. After she married Ray Morgan, it took her ten years to convince him to become a race car driver. She wanted him out of the grandstands and into the pits. In 1971, they built and entered a gutted 57 Chevy stock car, competing in both oval track and figure eight races. Ray drove and Diane was car owner as she took side jobs and later worked full time to finance their racing campaigns on both dirt and paved tracks all over the west coast. Over nearly twenty-five years they won, winning twelve track, state, and regional championships between 1978-1986 alone.

Diane occasionally got behind the wheel herself, mud-packing and racing in powder puff derbies, where drivers' wives, girlfriends, and daughters borrowed fire suits and vehicles to vie for a trophy. She entered and won every race but for one; she placed second.

Diane did not want a funeral, so no service is planned but she was memorialized by a race in her memory Friday, August 2 at Ocean Speedway at Watsonville fairgrounds.

Diane loved to travel. In her lifetime she visited every state in the union, plus Mexico and China. She traveled to see extended family members; attended both her and her ex-husband's family reunions; enjoyed fireworks trade shows; explored Roswell, New Mexico looking for extra terrestrials; and took her mother to Maui annually for several years.

Sometimes her travels took her to casinos where Black Jack and nickel slots were her favorites. When not at Tacci Palace, Chuckchansi, Tahoe, Reno, Las Vegas or Laughlin, Diane played cards, Bunco and Mexican Train dominoes fiercely. If she had her way, games could go on all night, especially if she wasn't winning.

Diane loved every opportunity to talk with friends at book club, Water Baby luncheons, Red Hat Society dinners and at Bunco tables both in Watsonville, California and Nampa, Idaho.

The true love of Diane's life however was her family. She loved her family deeply and enjoyed time spent with them. She is lovingly remembered by her daughters, Rachelle (David) Lewis, of Nampa, Idaho, and Denise (Bob) Allen, of Watsonville, California and her former husband, Ray Morgan of Fortine, Montana. She also leaves wonderful memories with her grandchildren, Rozalyn Ybarra, Meghan Lewis, Tony (Cassandra)Lewis, Joey (Elana) Louis, Morgan Louis, and Ben (Misty) Lewis, seven great grandchildren, many nieces and nephews, and countless cousins.

It was her love for her second father, Art Bailey, that resulted in Diane's long involvement with the Veterans of Foreign Wars post #1716 in Freedom, California. There she tended bar, helped with their weekly dinners, planned the Christmas parties for veterans' grandchildren, and served several terms as president of the Ladies Auxiliary.

Diane worked for many years at the Langendorf bread stores in Watsonville and Capitola, until they closed. Diane then became a hair stylist, making an occupation of a hobby she had enjoyed and practiced since she was a teenager. She worked at several hair salons in Watsonville, including Affair With Hair, which she co-owned with longtime friend Joanne Jackson.

Having been the last of her siblings, Diane was preceded in death by her brother, father, second father, mother, gentleman friend, sister and her cat, Chuckie. After a life fully lived for eighty years, Diane rejoined her family on the other side on June 14 of this year.