DONNA MCFARLIN

Donna Loray McFarlin was born to parents, Clarence McFarlin Sr., and Mildred McFarlin on June 28, 1959.    She was called home to be with the Lord on Friday, April 30, 2021.

As the oldest daughter of six siblings in a proud United States Air Force family, Donna traveled the world, learning to love people and make friends easily. When her family settled in San Antonio, Donna united with the New Light Baptist Church where she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior at an early age. She was baptized at New Light where she sang in the choir, attended Sunday School and Baptist Training Union. 

As is common with military children, Donna attended multiple elementary schools including W.W. White Elementary in San Antonio Texas as one of only a handful of black students to attend the school in the 1960’s. 

Donna came into her own at James Whitcomb Riley (now Martin Luther King Jr.) Middle School where she participated in many activities including Student Council, where she showcased her leadership skills, and where she was a member of the Mighty Panthers pep squad.  

Although her heart desired to finish high school at Sam Houston High School, the family relocated so that Donna attended Theodore Roosevelt High School where she again excelled, graduating at the top of the class of 1977. Donna  received multiple scholarship offers and accepted a “full-ride” scholarship to Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. 

Donna returned to Texas and accepted employment with the State of Texas, working in Austin for several years before moving to San Antonio where she accepted employment at United Healthcare.   

As her family and many friends would tell you, to know Donna was to love her.  At each of the stations assigned to her by the Lord, she made many friends and did good.  A quintessential auntie, Donna loved children, in particular her many nieces and nephews but also made room in her heart for the children of her many friends and her church family.  

Those left to celebrate Donna’s life and cherish her memory include her mother, Mildred McFarlin, her three brothers, Clarence McFarlin Jr., Daniel (and Sonia) McFarlin and Anthony (and Lorraine) McFarlin, and her two sisters, Angela (and James) Clack and Bridgette Johnson along with a host of loving nieces and nephews, great nieces and nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles and many loving neighbors and friends. 

At her passing, she was reunited with her father Clarence McFarlin Sr., her paternal grandparents John Calvin and Alice Mae McFarlin, her maternal grandmother Willie Maude Williams, her beloved sister-in-law Michelle, and a great host of family who have gone on before her.

Donna will be memorialized in a private family service and laid to rest in her family’s hometown of Palmetto Georgia at the Palmetto City Cemetery.  

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”  Psalm 23:6

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