Karren Donald

Celebration of Life

Mrs. Karren Donald

January 12, 1942 to March 2, 2021

Obituary / Life Reflections

Karren Donald was born on January 12, 1942 in Kansas City, Missouri.

She was the youngest daughter of John Cope and Electa Watson. Her sister Nancy Hayes and half-sister JoAnn and half-brother John preceded her in death.

Karren graduated from Sumner High School in Kansas City, Kansas in 1960. While attending high school, Karren and Elvin were high school sweethearts. She also attended one year of Nursing school in Kansas City, Kansas.

Karren married Elvin Donald on her birthday, January 12, 1961. To this union, two daughters were born, Pamela Y. Donald and Lisa M. Donald. They shared many family vacations fishing, camping and attending sporting events. Elvin’s nickname for Karren was “Peachy.”

Karren lived in Kansas City, Kansas and Missouri until the family moved to New Orleans for two years. Her love of Creole food flourished, and she added many tasty recipes to her already expert cooking skills. She loved to cook and was good at it.

Then, Karren and her family moved from New Orleans to Denver, Colorado in May 1972. The family moves from Kansas City to New Orleans to Denver were career related transfers for both Karren and Elvin. Karren continued to advance her career.

Karren was one of first two Black Women to work at Proctor and Gamble in Kansas City. In 1962, she began her U. S. Government career by working for the U.S. Post Office and the Federal Highway Administration in Kansas City. In 1970, Karren worked at the Department of Agriculture and the Veteran’s Administration in New Orleans.

In Denver, Karren started working for U. S. Customs Service as a secretary and then several years later she became a Custom’s Inspector. She also worked in Custom’s OAS and then was promoted to Supervisory Customs Inspector until she retired. She also served as the EEO coordinator for many years. She was the first Black person and the first Black woman to be in this position.

Karren was also selected to supervise the security detail for the Marta transportation in Atlanta for the 1996 Summer Olympics. When the bomb went off in the Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park, she and Elvin had just returned to her assigned motel and was called back to the scene where the explosion occurred. In 1997, She was instrumentational in organizing the G8 summit and relocating the U.S. Customs headquarters from Stapleton to Denver International Airport (DIA). She was a very good firearms sharpshooter and even provided assistance to her husband at the shooting range. She always qualified with high scores.

After she retired, she was selected by Washington DC to serve as a consultant in Bucharest, Romania to help their Custom facilities comply with regulations established by the World Bank in order to receive funding from the World Bank.

After returning to the states and resting, she worked part-time at Bonfil’s Blood Center organization and at Macy’s where she enjoyed meeting new people. Karren always like working and staying busy.

Karren grew up in the church and attended First Baptist church in Kansas City, Kansas. When she first moved to Denver, CO she joined the Macedonia Baptist Church. She was loyal member until she moved out to Centennial, where Karren then attended the Rising Star Baptist Church led by Reverend Dr. Jules E. Smith.

Karren and Elvin also opened a restaurant in Denver called Spruce Street East. Additionally, they opened a New Orleans style food business that participated in several local festivals and fairs. One of their most popular successes was their Cajun Fried Turkey leg and Crawfish Pies food booth at the Colorado Black Arts festival. Folks lined up to get their food and they were always sold out.

Being married to Elvin, who was a member of the Owl Club of Denver, she became a member of Owlettes Social Club. At one time, she gave the opening speech and introduced the new debutantes at the Owl Club Debutante Ball.

Karren was an avid reader and longstanding member of the On the Same Page / Sistah Circle bookclub and helped organize book signings for some of the authors who came to Denver. She was an avid gardener and loved flowers.

She enjoyed working in New Orleans, Denver, Alaska, Washington DC, Atlanta and Romania. In addition, she also enjoyed traveling to Greece with a missionary couple that she met while in Romania. While in Romania, she made work-related visits to Sophia, Bulgaria and areas outside the Black Sea in Romania.

Karren loved her and Elvin’s annual trips to the New Orleans Jazz festival and to several Essence Music Festivals. She also got a big hug from Harry Belafonte at one of the Jazz festivals.

As avid Denver Bronco fans, Karren and Elvin traveled to several Super Bowls, including one where Denver played San Francisco 49ers and she partied with the barrel man. They attended the summer Olympics in Los Angeles. She met Sinbad at a musical festival in St. Thomas in 1999 and got backstage passes to see him when he came to Denver at the Paramount Theatre.

Family was very important to Karren. She enjoyed attending church, plays and cultural events whenever she could. She loved getting her feet and hand massages from Pam her oldest daughter and she loved swimming in the Caribbean waters with Lisa her youngest daughter. She loved spending holidays with her grandchildren and was also blessed to spend some time with her new great granddaughter.

Karren departed from this life on Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 11:00 am. Those left to cherish her memory include her loving husband, Elvin Donald; daughters Pamela Y. Donald, Lisa M. Donald-Joseph; granddaughters, Mandisa A. Jones, Shani J. Riddick; grandsons, Alex G. Williams, Jr., Alique Abasi Williams; great granddaughter Brooklynn M. Ravenell; niece, Kimberly Daniels; and a host of other relatives.