Dona Jean Pray Key

Dona Jean Pray Key passed at home in Medford, Oregon, on May 7, 2023, after a years-long decline. Dona is survived by her children, Candace Key, Lori Key Becker, Philip Key and his wife Susana Alba, and Sally Key; her grandchildren Mark Reed Becker, Dein Lawrence, and Gabriel Key; and 2 great grandchildren, Jackson and Sawyer Becker. She was predeceased by her husband, James Shields Key, MD, her parents, and her sister.

Born June 27, 1928, in Rolla, Missouri, to Donald Porter Pray and Clementine Maggi Pray, Dona lived her entire life on the Ozarks Plateau. When she was seven-years-old, her family moved to a small farm near Monett, Missouri. Thinking back as an adult, Dona described the farm as “my father’s toy, my mother’s albatross, my learning place.” Rural living shaped her profoundly, and throughout her life she thought of herself as an educated farm girl. Her father considered her “his boy,” and taught her to ride horses, shoot, and drive a tractor. She earned a .22 rifle on a bet with her father when she shot, cleaned, and cooked a rabbit. She shared his love of flying and was the only family member to fly with him in his small Cessna.

While she adored her father, Dona and her mother shared an unusually close relationship and became best friends. Alone on the farm during the WW II years while her father was away building water treatment plants around the Midwest and her older sister, Margaret, was away at college, Dona and Clementine spent most of their time together. Dona took to calling her mother “Clem”, and together they ran the farm while making time for “Little Orphan Annie” and “Buck Rogers” on the radio, picnicking, and cooking. In particular, Dona became an expert baker. Dona eventually compiled her recipes into a cookbook for her family. That some of those recipes—such as springerle cookies and Country Captain chicken—also appear independently in James Beard’s American Cooking attests to Dona’s culinary sensibilities.

In high school, Dona was an excellent student. She was a cheer leader, year book editor, and actor in school plays. Upon graduating, she matriculated in 1947 to Gulf Park College for Women in Gulf Port, Mississippi. After a year, she transferred to Texas Christian University. There she met James Shields “Jim” Key, a skinny, quick-witted pre-med student from San Angelo, Texas. They married a year later and Dona left college before finishing her degree in biology. Daughter Margaret Candace was born in 1952 while Jim attended medical school in Galveston. Lori Anne, born in St. Louis, followed in 1953. The Keys settled in Springfield, Missouri, in 1956 where they had son Philip in 1958 and daughter Sally Pray in 1960. They didn’t have more children because Jim reportedly got jealous, because every time Dona was pregnant and they went fishing she always caught the biggest fish.

Throughout their marriage Dona and Jim found great satisfaction doing things together. They took up wilderness backpacking in the early 1960s, with Dona fashioning much of their outerwear from kits. They both became expert ornithologists and amassed impressive life lists of birds. Indeed, the most heated argument they had in front of their children was over a rare bird’s markings. Botany also served as a bonding interest, with both Jim and Dona going to Southwest Missouri State University, now Missouri State, and obtaining advanced degrees. Dona completed a B.S. in Biology in 1972, an M.S. in Education with an emphasis in Natural Science in 1976, and a M.A. in Biology in 1981.

Dona was a stay-at-home mother for over 25 years. But she did much more than just manage a household and raise four children. She started and led a parent teacher association at the kids’ elementary school; led her daughters’ Camp Fire troops and served on the Girl Scout Board; coordinated local Audubon Christmas bird counts; sang in the Covenant Presbyterian Church choir and taught Sunday school classes; and volunteered with charitable causes in the community.

After her youngest child left home for college, Dona put her degrees to work and began her second career as a science teacher in the Springfield public schools. There she found new friends and deep satisfaction in nurturing an interest in science and nature in young minds. School district management soon noticed her skill at bringing out the best in students and recruited Dona to teach in the Phelps Grove WINGS program. She taught for two decades, including conducting workshops at state and national conferences on gifted education.

With summers off while teaching, Dona and Jim began what became annual pilgrimages to Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico. Dona would work on archaeological digs and sorting findings at the Ruth Hall Museum of Paleontology while Jim catalogued desert plants and maintained hiking trails. Summers also found Dona and Jim involved in reconstructing the Gray/Campbell Farmstead at Nathaniel Green Park, one of the oldest homes in Springfield. Dona served on the board, volunteered as a docent in period costume, and developed a curriculum for fifth-grade students to experience life like it was in the 1860s.

Upon retirement Dona and Jim moved to the Rogue Valley Manor in Medford, Oregon, where Dona joined the local Presbyterian church and sang in the choir, participated in the Joyful Noise choir at Rogue Valley Manor, and cared for “her babies”—infants of new mothers with limited means.

Although a stroke and the onset of dementia slowed Dona beginning in 2013, her curiosity, kindness, and sense of humor never lagged. To the end she maintained her bright spirit, beautiful smile, sweet disposition, and luxurious waves of white hair that we will fondly remember forever.