Donald Emery Day, mayor of Bruin
Donald Emery Day, 75, of Bruin died Sunday of appendix cancer.
He was born Aug. 27, 1940, to the late Donald W. and Esther Emery Day in Karns City. He often mentioned the very happy youth he enjoyed with local friends, his father and grandfather, Ralph Emery.
He and his companions spent most of their time outdoors playing basketball, baseball, bicycling, sledding and ice skating. Every weekend in season he went fly fishing and waterfowl hunting with his father. In summer, he hunted groundhogs with Grandpa Emery. They gave them to folks, who ate them.
These activities led to his becoming a biology teacher and nature photographer. He earned his teaching credentials at Clarion and Indiana State colleges. He began his 32 year teaching career at Karns City Area High School in 1962.
Along with two other local teachers, Don photographed Pennsylvania wildflowers and prepared a narrated slide program, Portraits of Harmony. Long before many nature TV programs, he enhanced his biology classes with photographs of shore birds, snakes, alligators and fish from the J.N. Darling National Wildlife Refuge and the beaches of Sanibel.
On Dec. 15, 1961, he married Margaret Longwell in Olean, N.Y. For 52 years they lived in the Twaddle house, which his great uncle, Everett Emery, helped to build. He was the mayor of Bruin from 1995 to the present, where he enjoyed performing marriages including for his son, Don, and his wife, Elaine, in April 2013.
During retirement, Don and Margaret spent many winters near Fort Myers, Fla., where he enjoyed playing tennis, bicycling and beaching.
He is survived by his wife; his daughter, Donna Lau and her fiance, John Donnelly; his son, Donald, and his wife, Elaine; his grandson, Jarod Lau; his granddaughter, Isabella Lau; and his brother, John, and John's dear friend, Barbara Emmer.
He was preceded in death by his daughter, Catherine Anne in 1971 at age 9; and his brothers, Paul and Thomas.
DAY — Services for Donald Emery Day, who died Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016, are private.Arrangements are being handled by Kristin L. Hauman for the NATURAL FUNERAL CO., Pittsburgh.
