Diana Menkes

1932 - 2021 Diana Menkes passed away peacefully on March 17, 2021. She was born in December of 1932 to Charles and Ellavera Davis of Monrovia. She attended the local schools and graduated from Monrovia Arcadia Duarte (MAD) high school in 1950. She was active in many sports and editor of the yearbook her senior year. After graduation she headed to Stanford, graduating with a degree in English and Journalism. While at Stanford she married a classmate Newman Porter, also from Monrovia. After graduation she went and worked as an editor at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Later, Diana and Newman divorced, and Diana married Josh Menkes, a physicist from Vienna, who she had met while working at JPL. For the next 25 years of their lives, they lived and worked in Washington D.C., Tokyo, and Boulder Colorado where Josh taught at the University. Whenever they had some free time, they loved to travel and explore the world. While living in Washington D.C. she worked at the Smithsonian Institution for 16 years editing the Journal ISIS and was managing editor of the Archives of American Art Journal and continued editing various books and museum catalogs. Looking for a warmer place to live, Diana and Josh found a wonderful place by the sea in the Algarve in Portugal in 1986. Sadly, in 1988 Josh died of ALS. Diana stayed in Portugal for 20 years and continued to travel using her brilliant and inquisitive mind and love of conversation, to see the world. She celebrated her 80th birthday in Laos. Diana is survived by her sister, Gretchen Foulger of Pasadena, and nephew Michael Foulger of Placentia.