Donna Rae Organ-Harris

donna-organ-harris

Donna Rae Organ-Harris, age 71 of rural Lawrenceville, passed peacefully from this life to her Eternal Home on July 24, 2018 after a brief battle with cancer.

Donna was welcomed to this world on the Fourth of July in 1947 by Wilma (Goff) and Donald Tewell in their family home in Lawrenceville. For a few years, Donna thought the July 4th celebrations were exclusively for her!

Following graduation from Lawrenceville High School, she enrolled immediately in the nursing program at nearby Vincennes University; graduating from the two-year RN Program. Donna quickly established a career as a caring, knowledgeable woman who always put patients first and most especially where the OB Department was concerned.

She met and married a confirmed bachelor from Allison Prairie in 1968 named Roy Organ and the good times began. They welcomed four darlings in quick succession. It was said by many that “Roy Organ never knew what hit him!” Those four kids added so much excitement and dimension to both Donna and Roy’s lives; including the day the youngest two found the John Deere green and International red paint in the cellar and covered each other from head to toe. The sight greeted Donna one afternoon as she drove up their long drive after a busy shift at the hospital.

Roy passed from this life in December of 1991. Donna later met and married John L. Harris in 1995, and he preceded her in 2006. She was also preceded in death by her parents and one brother, Roger Leon Tewell.

It’s incredibly difficult to sum up in five paragraphs the laughter, excellent baking and cooking skills, overly generous and loving heart, the mamma-bear defense of her “cubs”, the devoted, highly skilled and professional nurse, the excellent listener, unsolicited advice-giver, and flawed but forgiven Christ-follower that is the essence of Donna.

She is going to be incredibly missed by her family, which includes her three sons: John (and his husband, Steve) Organ, Michael (and wife, Nancy) Organ, and Steven Organ; daughter, Lora (and husband, Robert) Melcho; five granddaughters: Madison, Audrey, Maizie, Raelee, and Lidia; one brother, Scott Tewell; two sisters: Kristal (Dwayne) Sovdi and Sherry (Rod) Harder; and one sister-in-law, Phyllis Tewell. Donna also leaves nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles, as well as good friends.

A visitation will be held for friends to greet her family from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, July 29, 2018 at the Hi-Way Church of God, just west of Lawrenceville, IL.

A Celebration of a Life Fully Lived will take place the next morning at 11 a.m. at the church. Burial will follow at Centerville Cemetery on the Allison Prairie, east of Lawrenceville, where she will be laid to rest by Roy Organ.

Memorials may be made to the Fish and Loaves food program for children in Lawrence County.

Online condolences and fond memories may be shared with the family at www.ingramfh.net.

Ingram Funeral Home of Albion is honored to be entrusted with the services.