Diane was born at Turner Air Force Base in Albany, Georgia. She had her first airplane flight ten days later as the family traveled to David's next assignment in Lubbock, Texas. For her first several months she lived on goats milk as she could not tolerate other nourishment. She and her mother moved to Iowa for several months while her dad trained in Florida. They moved to Bermuda in mid-1957 and the family lived in a historic (possibly haunted) duplex named Rose Cottage. She enjoyed sitting on the front steps eating bananas with her elderly neighbor Pop Smith.

Her sister Julie was born in late 1957. The family moved to Sacramento, California in 1959 and was there until 1964 when they moved to Plattsburg, New York along with new sister Cathy. In late 1967 the family moved to Sumter, South Carolina where her father trained for his next assignment in Thailand supporting the Vietnam War.

Upon her father's return the family moved to San Jose, California where Diane and Julie entered junior high school. The family moved to Dayton, Ohio in early 1972 where Diane and Julie graduated from high school.

Diane worked as assistant buyer in the bridal department at Rike's department store and attended college at Wright State University. In 1975 she moved to northern California where she worked for the Emporium department store in San Francisco as bridal buyer. She completed her college education at Saint Mary's University.

In 1983 she started her own business as an independent lighting representative serving retailers in northern California, including Home Depot.

In 1989 she married Anthony Martin. They had two daughters, Jessie and Gabrielle, and divorced in 2007. Gabrielle was born with cerebral palsy an at age four had a hemispherectomy done by Dr. Ben Carson at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Today she is a beautiful young lady who graduated from high school with honors and drives her own car.

Jessie was recently married to her high school sweetheart and lives in Manteca, California.

Diane ran her own business until 2010 when she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers, and then began to tutor high school students. In 2014 she moved to Montana with her parents. She was a member of Big Timber Lutheran Church and attended the Big Timber Woman's Club with friend Becky Todisco. She was a proud winner of a cattle prod at the Stockgrower's Banquet in 2016. Her best friend was Louie, a hundred-pound golden retriever. In 2017 she was admitted to the memory care unity at Saint Johns Lutheran Ministries in Billings. She passed on after a long battle on November 12.

Diane is survived by her parents, sister Julie in Dallas, Texas, sister Cathy in Little Rock, Arkansas and daughters Jessie and Gabrielle. Services will be held at 11 a.m., Monday, November 26 at Big Timber Lutheran Church. Interment will be done later at Mountain View Cemetery.

Previous Events

Cemetery Details