WW2, Don was a Naval officer stationed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and in Miami Beach, Florida. Post war, Don and Ada returned to Iowa where Don took an engineering job at Lennox Industries where he worked for 28 years, retiring as Chief Engineer of the Machine Shop at the ripe old age of 55 in 1975. At the time, their youngest child, Mary, was still in high school! Don and Ada raised their ever-growing family on a farm north of Conrad near Ada's family. In the home Don designed, the machine shop in the basement was an inventor's paradise of metal working machines of every size and shape. At times it seemed Don had the machines all programmed to create parts for the next generation of machines. Don could, and did, design and build machines and toys of every stripe - parts for everything from airplanes to church bells to Studebakers. His range of interests and abilities was unlimited. He designed and built from the ground up a series of space age-looking (and acting) riding lawn mowers that also doubled as work horse yard tractors. He documented many of his metal working projects and wrote up the process for national magazines. In high school he built a motorcycle that was featured in Popular Mechanics. Later in life he was often featured in Home Shop Machinist, including being featured for the cover article. Through these publications he met several kindred spirits, mechanical designers who he visited and corresponded with for the rest of his long life. And what an active life it was. Don was a happy, healthy person his whole life and took his family by campers and motor homes to every state in the continental US. Having hosted a Norwegian exchange student, Inger Marie Eidner, and having sent his daughter as an exchange student to Austria, he and the family formed lasting bonds with people in Norway, France and Austria. They saw Alaska and Hawaii and most of Europe. In their late 80s, Don and Ada were even speeding up rivers in New Zealand by jet boat. After nearly seventy blissful years of marriage, Don lost Ada when she was 88, and he thought of her with love every day thereafter. Throughout his 90s, Don traveled weekly with his doting granddaughter, Natalie Vreeland. Name a destination in Iowa, and it's likely they have seen it. At 96 and again at 97 he went to his son and late daughter-in-law's farm in Louisiana where they all raced around the farm and swamps on ATVs - laughing all the way! Don and Ada had five children, nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren including a newborn this last December named Ada. Children: Stewart Vreeland of Gray, ME and Ft. Necessity, LA and Virginia (Jim Hall) Gold of North Yarmouth, ME and Roger (Donna) Vreeland of Marshalltown, just south of Conrad and Jack (Nancy Montgomery) Vreeland of Portland, ME and Mary (Bill) Hawk of Vinton; Grandchildren: Zak, Wiley and Grayson Vreeland, Geoff (Shir Yin) and Harry (Kyle) Gold, Sam (Lindsey Eis) and Natalie Vreeland, Jacob (Tiffany) and Phillip (Amber) Hawk; Great grandchildren: Dylan Gold, Isaac Gold, Calvin Vreeland and Ada Hawk. He is preceded in death by his parents Fred and Pearl Vreeland; sister Jean Miller; his aunt Rebecca Rork who raised him; his wife Ada and his daughter-in-law Midge Vreeland, wife of Stewart. The family would like to thank Don's family of caregivers at Oakview in Conrad for all their time, talents and attention to Don during his time there. Flowers can be sent to Don's service, care of Anderson Funeral Homes in Conrad. Donations may also be made to Conrad First Presbyterian Church or Iowa River Hospice, who took loving care of both Don and Ada.