Diana Kay "DeeDee" Mitchell

Services for Diana Kay “DeeDee” Mitchell will be held at 1:00 p.m. Thursday, September 19, 2013 in the Gipson Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. Dr. Charles Rice of St. Paul’s E&R UCC in Dallas officiating. Interment will follow in the Garden of Memories Memorial Park.

Born in Lufkin on March 2, 1943, Texas Independence Day, Diana Kay (“DeeDee to her Dallas friends) died in Kindred Central Dallas Hospital at age 70 on September 16, 2013, after battling breast cancer for fourteen years. She is predeceased by her older brother, who died in utero, and by her parents, Hubbard Kay and Johnnie Harvill Mitchell.

Diana Kay graduated from Lufkin High School in 1961 and received her bachelor’s degree in business from North Texas State University in Denton in January 1965. Betty Clinkinbeard, the mother of Mary Lee Bryant, DeeDee’s college roommate, introduced DeeDee to her first job as a medical transcriptionist for University of Texas Southwestern Medical School’s pathology professor, Charlie Ashworth, M.D., and to her first apartment roommate, Sonja Romanowski, as Betty “Clink” was Sonja’s work secretary. Except for one year, DeeDee continued to work for Dr. Ashworth and his successor pathology labs until she retired in 2000 from what had grown to become part of Quest Diagnostics. DeeDee and Sonja became lifelong best friends and the sister each one never had. They learned to share one bathroom while they were roommates in the 1960’s and happily exploited that niche “talent” in worldwide travels to over 50 countries on every continent except Antarctica over the next 45 years.

DeeDee conquered her severe stuttering in her early 30’s, going on to become a proficient and effective public speaker. She served as President of the Dallas Chapter of the American Association for Medical Transcriptionists, held offices in Texas and nationally, and achieved CMT status. She served as President, Secretary, and Treasurer of Denton’s Venture Investment Club, then served as Secretary for Fun Funds Investment Club, as well as Treasurer of her church, St. Paul’s Evangelical and Reformed, a United Church of Christ congregation, in Dallas.

Diana Kay was honest and truthful to a fault, never comfortable making the “little white lies” most of us make and assume others say. She was a talented pianist, a naturally gifted soprano, crocheted beautifully, was a good charcoal sketcher. She was very talented mechanically, becoming a Powder Puff Mechanics graduate, learning to change the oil in her beloved Volvo and to change the “works” inside toilets. She could be called upon day or night to “fix” obstreperous computers and to copy or FAX important documents. She was creative and ingenious until the final days of her life when 50 pounds of abdominal and lower extremity fluid buildup (from breast cancer which had metastasized to her liver) sapped her strength, made her breathless, and diminished her indomitable “joie de vivre”.

DeeDee is survived by her “Mitchell Clan” of cousins, including Glenda Terrell, Sharon Daniel, Oleta Stewart, and Bob Mitchell, and by her Dallas “made up family”, including Sonja Romanowski, Doris Campbell Romanowski, Barbara Bilger, Pat and Jim Engelbrecht, Jaye Sanford, Janet Stiles, Barbara Lochridge Hogue, Parker Day, Art Sellevold, and Heidi, her beloved, lovable cat. DeeDee was most grateful for the determined, expert, sensitive medical care she received from Bijal Modi, M.D., her oncologist since her breast cancer spread to her liver and bone in 2009, and the entire Texas Oncology staff at Texas Health Resources—Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.

Visitation will be Wednesday, September 18, 2013 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Gipson Funeral Home in Lufkin.

Memorials may be made to St. Paul’s Church, 6464 East Lovers Lane, Dallas, TX 75214; to Blue Candlelight Music Series, 14792 Lochinvar Court, Dallas, TX 75254; or to the charity of your choice.

Condolences may be offered at www.gipsonfuneralhome.com

Services have been placed in the trust of Gipson Funeral Home