Dr. Donald Ellsworth Applegate, of Pensacola, Florida, died on Saturday, July 11, 2020 at the age of 92, after contracting COVID-19 at his long-term care facility, the Haven of our Lady of Peace. A loving husband and father, Don was the embodiment of traditional Midwest values.
Peggy Joy, his wife of more than sixty years, passed away in 2014. He is survived by his brother, Richard Applegate (Judy Applegate), daughters Susan Grady (Ray Grady), Judith Ortner (Peter Ortner) and Karen Baxter (Tom Baxter), granddaughters Jennifer Rice (Zachery Rice), Lian and Katherine Ortner and great-grandsons Carson and Landon Rice.
Don’s late parents, Waltz and Minnie, raised him and his younger brother, to both love learning and honor public service. The brothers went on to obtain post-graduate professional degrees and have long and successful careers in the USN and the USFWS respectively.
Relationships were important to Don and he kept in close touch with remote classmates, medical colleagues, shipmates and relatives. Prior to becoming a resident at the Haven, Don had been bringing joy to staff and residents delivering fresh Camellia blooms from his garden to the Haven as well as other local retirement facilities.
After graduating as his high school’s valedictorian in 1946, Don went on to DePauw University where he was lucky enough to meet and marry Peggy. He obtained his B.S. from DePauw in 1950 followed by his DDS from the Loyola College of Dental Surgery in 1954. After that he spent two obligatory years in the USN Reserve as a dental officer stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Station. He then spent six years in private practice in Richmond Indiana (coincidentally the birthplace of American recorded jazz) before returning in 1963 to active duty in the regular USN. Over the next thirteen years Don served the USN during the Vietnam War in the Pacific and South China Sea both aboard ship and ashore. He delivered Marines to combat duty and received the combat-wounded for treatment. In 1976 he transferred to the Pensacola Naval Air Station where his patients included the Blue Angels. Don retired from service in 1981 and resided in Pensacola for the remaining 39 years of his life.
After retirement Don devoted himself to photography, music, rigorous scholarly study of Pensacola and U.S. history, golf and his backyard garden. He grew California Fuchsias but in later years focused upon the genus Camellia. He was much more successful in his horticulture than his golf game, developing prize-winning hybrids; the most renowned of which he named for his devoted wife, “Peggy’s Blush”. As an American Camellia Society judge he often participated at regional flower shows and was at one time the president of the local Camellia Club. That said, to his devoted children and grandchildren Don’s backyard was more significant as the source of delicious Satsuma mandarin oranges and the site of highly competitive games of “Washer”.
Don loved jazz, especially the music of Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Hoagie Carmichael and Ella Fitzgerald and he could be readily coaxed into singing jazz oldies a capella or with piano accompaniment. He especially favored romantic ballads like Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” and Hoagie Carmichael’s “The Nearness of You”. He loved babies and animals, the family cats in particular (treating them all in a remarkably similar manner), a rejuvenating dip in the California surf or Gulf of Mexico, travel to new places and the majesty of the nation’s national parks. Don was never without his venerable Olympus SLR and he loved documenting family events on 16mm film including backyard midwestern summer badminton games as well as staged antics like incongruous multitudes emerging from his 1959 VW Beetle.
A year after his wife’s passing, Don fell and broke his hip requiring extensive post-operative rehabilitation at The Haven. After rehabilitation he elected to remain there, becoming a fulltime resident for the last 5 years of his life. He was much loved at the nursing center and would never pass up the back rubs offered by staff members. He relished their convivial banter during his daily constitutional. His private-duty daytime companion, Pam, became his closest ally. She was instrumental in winning Don over to an electronic reader. Once he discovered the immediate accessibility to any book he wanted to read and the font size enlarging capability of his Kindle (news print had become difficult to read), he was rarely seen without it. He enjoyed reading until the very last week of his life.
The family would like to express their deepest gratitude and appreciation to both the Cardiac Unit at Sacred Heart Hospital along with Covenant Hospice for providing the comfort, support and personal attention that allowed Don to pass his final days in peace. Special thanks are due to the remarkably caring nurses and support staff Jeremy, Shelby and Emily.
Don will be cremated but no memorial service is possible at this time. At a future date he will receive a service with full military honors at Barrancas National Cemetery at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola.
If you would like to make a donation in his memory please consider the Pensacola Camellia Club or Covenant Hospice at Sacred Heart Hospital, whose intercession in his final days was absolutely essential.
Suggested edit: APPLEGATE, DONALD ELLSWORTH
CAPT US NAVY
VIETNAM
DATE OF BIRTH: 05/04/1928
DATE OF DEATH: 07/11/2020
BURIED AT: SECTION MC SITE 93 Click to view the cemetery map
BARRANCAS NATIONAL CEMETERY
NAVAL AIR STATION, 1 CEMETERY ROAD PENSACOLA, FL 32508
(850) 453-4108
Contributor: Earth Angel (47237289)
Peggy Joy, his wife of more than sixty years, passed away in 2014. He is survived by his brother, Richard Applegate (Judy Applegate), daughters Susan Grady (Ray Grady), Judith Ortner (Peter Ortner) and Karen Baxter (Tom Baxter), granddaughters Jennifer Rice (Zachery Rice), Lian and Katherine Ortner and great-grandsons Carson and Landon Rice.
Don’s late parents, Waltz and Minnie, raised him and his younger brother, to both love learning and honor public service. The brothers went on to obtain post-graduate professional degrees and have long and successful careers in the USN and the USFWS respectively.
Relationships were important to Don and he kept in close touch with remote classmates, medical colleagues, shipmates and relatives. Prior to becoming a resident at the Haven, Don had been bringing joy to staff and residents delivering fresh Camellia blooms from his garden to the Haven as well as other local retirement facilities.
After graduating as his high school’s valedictorian in 1946, Don went on to DePauw University where he was lucky enough to meet and marry Peggy. He obtained his B.S. from DePauw in 1950 followed by his DDS from the Loyola College of Dental Surgery in 1954. After that he spent two obligatory years in the USN Reserve as a dental officer stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Station. He then spent six years in private practice in Richmond Indiana (coincidentally the birthplace of American recorded jazz) before returning in 1963 to active duty in the regular USN. Over the next thirteen years Don served the USN during the Vietnam War in the Pacific and South China Sea both aboard ship and ashore. He delivered Marines to combat duty and received the combat-wounded for treatment. In 1976 he transferred to the Pensacola Naval Air Station where his patients included the Blue Angels. Don retired from service in 1981 and resided in Pensacola for the remaining 39 years of his life.
After retirement Don devoted himself to photography, music, rigorous scholarly study of Pensacola and U.S. history, golf and his backyard garden. He grew California Fuchsias but in later years focused upon the genus Camellia. He was much more successful in his horticulture than his golf game, developing prize-winning hybrids; the most renowned of which he named for his devoted wife, “Peggy’s Blush”. As an American Camellia Society judge he often participated at regional flower shows and was at one time the president of the local Camellia Club. That said, to his devoted children and grandchildren Don’s backyard was more significant as the source of delicious Satsuma mandarin oranges and the site of highly competitive games of “Washer”.
Don loved jazz, especially the music of Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Hoagie Carmichael and Ella Fitzgerald and he could be readily coaxed into singing jazz oldies a capella or with piano accompaniment. He especially favored romantic ballads like Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” and Hoagie Carmichael’s “The Nearness of You”. He loved babies and animals, the family cats in particular (treating them all in a remarkably similar manner), a rejuvenating dip in the California surf or Gulf of Mexico, travel to new places and the majesty of the nation’s national parks. Don was never without his venerable Olympus SLR and he loved documenting family events on 16mm film including backyard midwestern summer badminton games as well as staged antics like incongruous multitudes emerging from his 1959 VW Beetle.
A year after his wife’s passing, Don fell and broke his hip requiring extensive post-operative rehabilitation at The Haven. After rehabilitation he elected to remain there, becoming a fulltime resident for the last 5 years of his life. He was much loved at the nursing center and would never pass up the back rubs offered by staff members. He relished their convivial banter during his daily constitutional. His private-duty daytime companion, Pam, became his closest ally. She was instrumental in winning Don over to an electronic reader. Once he discovered the immediate accessibility to any book he wanted to read and the font size enlarging capability of his Kindle (news print had become difficult to read), he was rarely seen without it. He enjoyed reading until the very last week of his life.
The family would like to express their deepest gratitude and appreciation to both the Cardiac Unit at Sacred Heart Hospital along with Covenant Hospice for providing the comfort, support and personal attention that allowed Don to pass his final days in peace. Special thanks are due to the remarkably caring nurses and support staff Jeremy, Shelby and Emily.
Don will be cremated but no memorial service is possible at this time. At a future date he will receive a service with full military honors at Barrancas National Cemetery at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola.
If you would like to make a donation in his memory please consider the Pensacola Camellia Club or Covenant Hospice at Sacred Heart Hospital, whose intercession in his final days was absolutely essential.
Suggested edit: APPLEGATE, DONALD ELLSWORTH
CAPT US NAVY
VIETNAM
DATE OF BIRTH: 05/04/1928
DATE OF DEATH: 07/11/2020
BURIED AT: SECTION MC SITE 93 Click to view the cemetery map
BARRANCAS NATIONAL CEMETERY
NAVAL AIR STATION, 1 CEMETERY ROAD PENSACOLA, FL 32508
(850) 453-4108
Contributor: Earth Angel (47237289)
Dr. Donald Ellsworth Applegate, of Pensacola, Florida, died on Saturday, July 11, 2020 at the age of 92, after contracting COVID-19 at his long-term care facility, the Haven of our Lady of Peace. A loving husband and father, Don was the embodiment of traditional Midwest values.
Peggy Joy, his wife of more than sixty years, passed away in 2014. He is survived by his brother, Richard Applegate (Judy Applegate), daughters Susan Grady (Ray Grady), Judith Ortner (Peter Ortner) and Karen Baxter (Tom Baxter), granddaughters Jennifer Rice (Zachery Rice), Lian and Katherine Ortner and great-grandsons Carson and Landon Rice.
Don’s late parents, Waltz and Minnie, raised him and his younger brother, to both love learning and honor public service. The brothers went on to obtain post-graduate professional degrees and have long and successful careers in the USN and the USFWS respectively.
Relationships were important to Don and he kept in close touch with remote classmates, medical colleagues, shipmates and relatives. Prior to becoming a resident at the Haven, Don had been bringing joy to staff and residents delivering fresh Camellia blooms from his garden to the Haven as well as other local retirement facilities.
After graduating as his high school’s valedictorian in 1946, Don went on to DePauw University where he was lucky enough to meet and marry Peggy. He obtained his B.S. from DePauw in 1950 followed by his DDS from the Loyola College of Dental Surgery in 1954. After that he spent two obligatory years in the USN Reserve as a dental officer stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Station. He then spent six years in private practice in Richmond Indiana (coincidentally the birthplace of American recorded jazz) before returning in 1963 to active duty in the regular USN. Over the next thirteen years Don served the USN during the Vietnam War in the Pacific and South China Sea both aboard ship and ashore. He delivered Marines to combat duty and received the combat-wounded for treatment. In 1976 he transferred to the Pensacola Naval Air Station where his patients included the Blue Angels. Don retired from service in 1981 and resided in Pensacola for the remaining 39 years of his life.
After retirement Don devoted himself to photography, music, rigorous scholarly study of Pensacola and U.S. history, golf and his backyard garden. He grew California Fuchsias but in later years focused upon the genus Camellia. He was much more successful in his horticulture than his golf game, developing prize-winning hybrids; the most renowned of which he named for his devoted wife, “Peggy’s Blush”. As an American Camellia Society judge he often participated at regional flower shows and was at one time the president of the local Camellia Club. That said, to his devoted children and grandchildren Don’s backyard was more significant as the source of delicious Satsuma mandarin oranges and the site of highly competitive games of “Washer”.
Don loved jazz, especially the music of Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Hoagie Carmichael and Ella Fitzgerald and he could be readily coaxed into singing jazz oldies a capella or with piano accompaniment. He especially favored romantic ballads like Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” and Hoagie Carmichael’s “The Nearness of You”. He loved babies and animals, the family cats in particular (treating them all in a remarkably similar manner), a rejuvenating dip in the California surf or Gulf of Mexico, travel to new places and the majesty of the nation’s national parks. Don was never without his venerable Olympus SLR and he loved documenting family events on 16mm film including backyard midwestern summer badminton games as well as staged antics like incongruous multitudes emerging from his 1959 VW Beetle.
A year after his wife’s passing, Don fell and broke his hip requiring extensive post-operative rehabilitation at The Haven. After rehabilitation he elected to remain there, becoming a fulltime resident for the last 5 years of his life. He was much loved at the nursing center and would never pass up the back rubs offered by staff members. He relished their convivial banter during his daily constitutional. His private-duty daytime companion, Pam, became his closest ally. She was instrumental in winning Don over to an electronic reader. Once he discovered the immediate accessibility to any book he wanted to read and the font size enlarging capability of his Kindle (news print had become difficult to read), he was rarely seen without it. He enjoyed reading until the very last week of his life.
The family would like to express their deepest gratitude and appreciation to both the Cardiac Unit at Sacred Heart Hospital along with Covenant Hospice for providing the comfort, support and personal attention that allowed Don to pass his final days in peace. Special thanks are due to the remarkably caring nurses and support staff Jeremy, Shelby and Emily.
Don will be cremated but no memorial service is possible at this time. At a future date he will receive a service with full military honors at Barrancas National Cemetery at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola.
If you would like to make a donation in his memory please consider the Pensacola Camellia Club or Covenant Hospice at Sacred Heart Hospital, whose intercession in his final days was absolutely essential.
Suggested edit: APPLEGATE, DONALD ELLSWORTH
CAPT US NAVY
VIETNAM
DATE OF BIRTH: 05/04/1928
DATE OF DEATH: 07/11/2020
BURIED AT: SECTION MC SITE 93 Click to view the cemetery map
BARRANCAS NATIONAL CEMETERY
NAVAL AIR STATION, 1 CEMETERY ROAD PENSACOLA, FL 32508
(850) 453-4108
Contributor: Earth Angel (47237289)
Peggy Joy, his wife of more than sixty years, passed away in 2014. He is survived by his brother, Richard Applegate (Judy Applegate), daughters Susan Grady (Ray Grady), Judith Ortner (Peter Ortner) and Karen Baxter (Tom Baxter), granddaughters Jennifer Rice (Zachery Rice), Lian and Katherine Ortner and great-grandsons Carson and Landon Rice.
Don’s late parents, Waltz and Minnie, raised him and his younger brother, to both love learning and honor public service. The brothers went on to obtain post-graduate professional degrees and have long and successful careers in the USN and the USFWS respectively.
Relationships were important to Don and he kept in close touch with remote classmates, medical colleagues, shipmates and relatives. Prior to becoming a resident at the Haven, Don had been bringing joy to staff and residents delivering fresh Camellia blooms from his garden to the Haven as well as other local retirement facilities.
After graduating as his high school’s valedictorian in 1946, Don went on to DePauw University where he was lucky enough to meet and marry Peggy. He obtained his B.S. from DePauw in 1950 followed by his DDS from the Loyola College of Dental Surgery in 1954. After that he spent two obligatory years in the USN Reserve as a dental officer stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Station. He then spent six years in private practice in Richmond Indiana (coincidentally the birthplace of American recorded jazz) before returning in 1963 to active duty in the regular USN. Over the next thirteen years Don served the USN during the Vietnam War in the Pacific and South China Sea both aboard ship and ashore. He delivered Marines to combat duty and received the combat-wounded for treatment. In 1976 he transferred to the Pensacola Naval Air Station where his patients included the Blue Angels. Don retired from service in 1981 and resided in Pensacola for the remaining 39 years of his life.
After retirement Don devoted himself to photography, music, rigorous scholarly study of Pensacola and U.S. history, golf and his backyard garden. He grew California Fuchsias but in later years focused upon the genus Camellia. He was much more successful in his horticulture than his golf game, developing prize-winning hybrids; the most renowned of which he named for his devoted wife, “Peggy’s Blush”. As an American Camellia Society judge he often participated at regional flower shows and was at one time the president of the local Camellia Club. That said, to his devoted children and grandchildren Don’s backyard was more significant as the source of delicious Satsuma mandarin oranges and the site of highly competitive games of “Washer”.
Don loved jazz, especially the music of Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Hoagie Carmichael and Ella Fitzgerald and he could be readily coaxed into singing jazz oldies a capella or with piano accompaniment. He especially favored romantic ballads like Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” and Hoagie Carmichael’s “The Nearness of You”. He loved babies and animals, the family cats in particular (treating them all in a remarkably similar manner), a rejuvenating dip in the California surf or Gulf of Mexico, travel to new places and the majesty of the nation’s national parks. Don was never without his venerable Olympus SLR and he loved documenting family events on 16mm film including backyard midwestern summer badminton games as well as staged antics like incongruous multitudes emerging from his 1959 VW Beetle.
A year after his wife’s passing, Don fell and broke his hip requiring extensive post-operative rehabilitation at The Haven. After rehabilitation he elected to remain there, becoming a fulltime resident for the last 5 years of his life. He was much loved at the nursing center and would never pass up the back rubs offered by staff members. He relished their convivial banter during his daily constitutional. His private-duty daytime companion, Pam, became his closest ally. She was instrumental in winning Don over to an electronic reader. Once he discovered the immediate accessibility to any book he wanted to read and the font size enlarging capability of his Kindle (news print had become difficult to read), he was rarely seen without it. He enjoyed reading until the very last week of his life.
The family would like to express their deepest gratitude and appreciation to both the Cardiac Unit at Sacred Heart Hospital along with Covenant Hospice for providing the comfort, support and personal attention that allowed Don to pass his final days in peace. Special thanks are due to the remarkably caring nurses and support staff Jeremy, Shelby and Emily.
Don will be cremated but no memorial service is possible at this time. At a future date he will receive a service with full military honors at Barrancas National Cemetery at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola.
If you would like to make a donation in his memory please consider the Pensacola Camellia Club or Covenant Hospice at Sacred Heart Hospital, whose intercession in his final days was absolutely essential.
Suggested edit: APPLEGATE, DONALD ELLSWORTH
CAPT US NAVY
VIETNAM
DATE OF BIRTH: 05/04/1928
DATE OF DEATH: 07/11/2020
BURIED AT: SECTION MC SITE 93 Click to view the cemetery map
BARRANCAS NATIONAL CEMETERY
NAVAL AIR STATION, 1 CEMETERY ROAD PENSACOLA, FL 32508
(850) 453-4108
Contributor: Earth Angel (47237289)
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