Donna Marie Coughenour
Donna Marie Coughenour of Mehlville, MO, passed away on Sunday, March 14, 2021, at the age of 70. She is survived by many family members, as she was a loving wife to Ronald Coughenour, dear mother of Christa (Eric) Dieckmann and Brian (Alex Cocklin) Coughenour, and cherished grandmother of Olivia Dieckmann. She is also survived by her mother, Rosemarie Renz; her two sisters, Barbara (the late Tony) Martorana and Lesley (Mark) Klein; and her brothers Stephen (Denine) Renz and Christopher (Katie) Renz. Donna will be especially missed by her dear best friend, Patricia Pautler. She was preceded in death by her father, Donald Renz. Donna was a deeply loved aunt, niece, cousin, and friend to so many.
Donna and Ron met at a Graduate Club dance held at Trader Vic’s in downtown St. Louis, and they were married on Valentine’s Day 1975, having just celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary last month.
Donna worked as an Administrative Assistant at both Anheuser Busch and Estee Lauder. She loved sharing these past years with Ron in retirement. Donna enjoyed reading and bringing joy to her family and friends through her love of cooking and baking (especially her amazing Christmas cookies). Although she spent much of her retirement caring for her mother, Donna took many trips with Ron and friends, with Road Scholar trips being some of her and Ron’s favorites. In addition to their “city” trips, they also enjoyed trips to Hawaii and Europe and a very memorable European cruise trip.
The most important thing in Donna’s life were the ones she loved – her family and friends. She leaves all those who loved her with years of memories from christening parties, birthday celebrations, anniversary dinners, and more. If there was a reason to bring the family together and celebrate, Donna would be hosting at her house. She spent many hours decorating and preparing meals that the family shared – with the annual Christmas Eve festivities being at the top of the list, which always included visits from Santa for the little ones.
Donna was a compassionate person who exemplified qualities of self-sacrifice, truthfulness, fairness, and honesty. Dedicated to her family and her faith (as a parishioner of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque for 42 years) each and every day, she will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved her.
A Memorial Mass will be held on Friday, May 7, 2021, at St. Margaret Mary Alacoque church at 10:00 AM, followed by a luncheon in the Parish Center. A private burial will be at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to Head for the Cure (https://www.headforthecure.
Donna, I miss you so much. We met way back in 1986 and developed such a good friendship. You always loved me just the way I was and accepted my quirks. You will never know how much I appreciated that. Even though we haven’t gotten together as much as we would have liked to over the past years, when we did it was like we just saw each other yesterday. I can only name 3 people that I truly can call a friend and you were one of them. I will miss our lunches at the Greek Church :). You will always be in my heart. I love you
I just recently found out about Donna’s passing of which I am so very very sorry. I first met Donna at Anheuser Busch where she worked as our administrative assistant. She was an extremely smart , dedicated and well organized individual. It took this type of individual to keep a group of engineers sharp on their toes. Nothing but fond memories during our Anheuser-Busch days.
As years passed it seemed like I was always running into Ron and Donna in south county somewhere maybe at the local gym but our conversations usually wound up talking about their interesting trips that they took on Road Scholar
Sending prayers of strength and God‘s blessings to Ron and the whole family.