Donald Earle Mullen

On the morning of September 16, 2023, Donald Earle Mullen passed into the loving arms of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There to welcome him into heaven were his wife, Joann (Lundberg), his mom and dad Everett and Imogene Mullen, older brothers Everett Jr. and Gilbert, his sister Patricia, and his first grandchild Derek Roger, among many other family members and friends.

Born in Superior, WI less than a month before the start of the Great Depression, he lived life to the fullest, despite the economic hardship his family endured as they moved west to Eugene, OR, then to Washington state. His first memory was holding his dad’s hand as he accompanied him and his two older brothers into the woods to look for bullfrogs his mom would cook for dinner that night under the family of seven’s “home” under a tarp in the forest outside Shelton, WA.

Don starred in basketball at Lincoln High School, and later for both the Buchan Bakers of the AAU league, and the “Idiots”, an intramural team of men who couldn’t afford to live in fraternities, but who won the Intramural Championship at the University of Washington.

With his older brothers off in the Merchant Marines and the Navy and his sister married, Don and his younger brother Jim were left alone when their mother and father both died in short order in their house on Latona Avenue in Seattle. Don joined the Navy Reserve after calculating that by hitch-hiking to and from San Diego for his annual training he could continue to pay his tuition at the UW. He became fully qualified in submarines before leaving the reserves shortly before marrying Joann, a summer intern at Don’s Allstate Insurance office in Seattle. It was love at first sight, he said. They married on the first day of Spring in 1956.

As a young, busy businessman at 39, Don’s faith was tested when an accident left Joann with a traumatic brain injury that the specialists all believed would prove fatal. They called it miraculous when nearly a year after the accident she returned home. More miraculous still may have been the way she – and Don - continued pouring the love and character of Jesus Christ into their family members and just about everyone else they met. In part because of that crisis, in 1970 Don began an association with Bible Study Fellowship that continued until his death. He loved his Savior and His Word, and had an absolute passion for sharing the love of the gospel with everyone in his extended family and whatever social circle he found himself in.

Don rose to become a highly successful Sales Manager at Allstate. He was a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. His children, Susan Kaiser, Kelly (“John”) (Dori), and Craig (Jodi), along with his grandchildren (Lindsay (Jeff), Michael, Matthew, Jordan, Joseph (Hannah), and Justin (Brittany)), and great grandchildren (Wesley, Leona, Sydney, Sawyer, and Evelyn), will remember him as a loving, gentle soul with an fantastic sense of humor, an easy smile, and a capacity to befriend just about whomever he met – right up to the very end.

Don was intelligent and competitive in anything he had an interest in – basketball, squash, and even the card game of “golf” with his grandchildren. But his children, grandchildren, and their children will grow up knowing him through the memories of family gatherings, vacations on the Oregon Coast, his playful spirit, and the unconditional love he showered on all his family.

This world has lost an incredible soul, a bright light we are all proud of and sad to lose – if only until we see him again. At this time, as the family grieves his loss, we all take comfort in knowing heaven just became a bit brighter and a little more fun.

A Celebration of life will be held 3:00 PM Thursday, October 12th at Westminster Chapel, 13646 NE 24th Street, Bellevue, WA 98005. All are welcome to attend.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Eph. 2:8-10