SEMINOLE — Before his dementia, Donald Burnison had led a contented retirement. He worked with a full-timer's energy on Kiwanis Club activities, raising money for children in the Tampa Bay area.
Sometimes, Mr. Burnison and his wife, Doris, would hook up the travel trailer and head to a campground, where they would have cookouts with other square-dancing couples.
Mr. Burnison later lost his memory and most of his simple pleasures. His wife slept with one eye open, worried he would slip out of the house at night.
Mr. Burnison, who in better days would be planning a Christmas tree sale right around now, died Friday. He was 83.
"I don't think I ever saw him get mad until this dementia took over and changed his attitude," his wife said.
Doris met Donald at a diner in Armstrong, Ill., where she worked as a waitress while still in high school. He seemed laid back and happy to help anybody.
Both their sons were diagnosed with asthma, and the family moved to Seminole in 1957. Mr. Burnison enjoyed bowling and fishing in his 22-foot boat. He worked in a variety of building trades, the final 10 years as a truss supervisor for a lumber company and as a general contractor.
He retired in 1990, three years before his wife. Mr. Burnison did laundry and washed dishes, cooked dinner and set the table. He worked on the Kiwanis Fall Festival, an event he had started and chaired in the mid 1980s, and its annual Christmas tree sale.
"He'd say, 'I sold 20 trees today,' " said Doris, 81. "That was his conversation from Thanksgiving to the last day before Christmas."
In the early 2000s, Mr. Burnison suffered a pair of strokes and lost vision to macular degeneration. His memory slipped.
Conversation as they had known it fell by the wayside.
"I would talk and talk and talk to him and say, 'Do you have an answer for me?' " his wife said. "And he would just look at me like he didn't have any idea what I said."
She drove him to parks or to the store. It wasn't enough to quell his boredom. Mr. Burnison, who had enjoyed a daily walk to get coffee at a McDonald's, began walking more and more.
She learned not to challenge him directly. That just riled him up more. If Mr. Burnison had been gone more than 15 minutes, she called neighbors. That worked most of the time.
After Mr. Burnison cut his head on the street in August, his family decided it was time. They took him to a nursing home.
The first night, Doris didn't visit.
"I knew I'd bring him back," she said.
Andrew Meacham can be reached at (727) 892-2248 or ameacham@sptimes.com.
>>Biography
Donald Duncan Burnison
Born: May 28, 1926.
Died: Oct. 9, 2009.
Survivors: Wife, Doris; son, Phillip, and his wife, Marie; four grandchildren; three great-grandchildren.
Service: Visitation 6 to 8 p.m. today, Mohn Funeral Home, 9700 Seminole Blvd.; service 10 a.m. Wednesday; Seminole United Methodist Church, 5400 Seminole Blvd., Seminole.
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