DONNA MAY CIHAK

Donna May Cihak, passed away on July 5, 2018 in the arms of her loving daughter Amy at Sunrise of La Jolla Assisted Living Facility. She was born on June 8, 1939, at the Coco Solo Naval Station Hospital in the United States Canal Zone, where her father was stationed on a submarine. She was baptized at the nearby Cathedral of Colon, Panama.

Donna’s father, Donald Scherer, was an officer in the United States Navy who put in tours of duty aboard submarines during World War II. He was the last commander of the USS Pampanito submarine.

While her father was stationed at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, Donna attended Punahou College Preparatory School in Honolulu. There she became a member of the Outrigger Club at Waikiki Beach. The club was located where the Outrigger Hotel is today.

During her college years, Donna first attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, then transferred to the University of Florida where she was runner up to the Miss University of Florida. After graduating she was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Subsequent employment with the CIA took her to Washington, D.C. and then to the United States Embassy in London. After her stint with the CIA, she became employed at Pascagoula, Mississippi, in the Standard Oil Refi nery.

When Donna finally moved to San Diego in her late 20s, she went to work in the defense industry for General Atomics in La Jolla.

Donna was a staunch American patriot. She had a continuing membership until her death in the San Francisco Maritime Museum located near Fisherman’s Wharf. Her father’s old vessel, the USS Pampanito, is now moored in the park, where it houses a museum.

She also kept up connections to Hawaii over the years, visiting many times with her husband John Cihak and their children. She loved to travel, especially on cruises to various parts of the world.

Donna’s patriotism played out further in her active participation in several Republican Women’s Clubs and the Republican Party of San Diego. She was an ardent Catholic as well and belonged to the Catholic Alumnae Club for single Catholic college graduates, where she met her future husband. After they were married, they moved to Del Cerro, where Donna became a member of the Del Cerro Junior Women’s Club.

But it was in the world of the arts that Donna was most comfortable. She was a highly respected San Diego artist who was once commissioned to paint a joint portrait of Pacific Southwest Airlines founder Kenny Friedkin and his wife Jean. The portrait still hangs in the San Diego Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park.

But it was Donna’s talent for painting children that captured the most attention.

Donna was also recognized for her work on hummingbirds as subjects. And she did a series on African tribal women from National Geographic photography. She belonged to the Foothills Art Association and the Pastel Society of San Diego, a portrait organization.

She supported other arts as well. She was a season ticket holder at the Old Globe Theater in Balboa Park. And she was always supportive as her daughter Amy became accomplished in ballet.

Family and friends remember Donna, too, for her comfortable sense of humor. Her husband John Cihak recalls the time he bought her first cell phone for a Christmas present and put it in her stocking on the fireplace mantel in their Scripps Ranch home. He then called its number and playfully watched her as she struggled to figure out where the ring was coming from.

He remembers also the time he and Donna sat in the hot pool at midnight in Warner Springs Ranch (an almost yearly New Year’s family ritual) awaiting the world changing arrival of Y2K. “Donna and I laughed for months afterward,” he says, “as those who touted the huge transformation that was supposed to materialize afterward never said another word about it.”

Donna is survived by her husband, her son Steven, daughters Julie Harper and Amy Cihak; and grandchildren Steven, twins Donovan and Douglas, and Katelin; Jake, Jacquelyn and Josh Harper; and Josephine Cihak. She was preceded in death by her mother Catherine Arlene Scherer and Captain Donald A. Scherer.

Donna Cihak is greatly missed.

A memorial mass was celebrated in Donna’s honor by her nephew Monsignor John R. Cihak in Saint Gregory the Great Catholic Church on Tuesday, September 25, in San Diego.