Donald Jonathan Ivers, 70
Daily Inter-Lake | UPDATED 7 months, 4 weeks AGO
After a courageous 5-year battle with cancer, Donald Jonathan Ivers, 70, passed away peacefully on June 24, 2025, at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Sacramento, California. He was born on Nov. 15, 1954, in Whitefish.
He loved baseball. His aunt, Mary Ellen Connelly, recalls that during the 1960s, the Lions Club in Whitefish sponsored a Little League team. Don played third base on the Fortine Little League team that was coached by his cousin, Ken Ivers. Other players were his cousin, Patrick Connelly, who played shortstop and catcher and Doug Wolf, who pitched. Additional coaches were his uncle, Jim Connelly and Jack Wolf.
At 19, Don joined the Marines and served a rotation to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After his military service, he moved to Reno, Nevada, where he met and married Mariana in 1981. They relocated to Sacramento, where he worked for the state of California as a custodian for more than 32 years before retiring in 2018. He worked for 20 years at the California State Fair for three weeks each summer. In addition, he worked 24 years as a concessions crew member for Sacramento Kings games, Monarch games, Disney on Ice, numerous concerts and other events at Arco Arena and the Golden One Center before the cancer forced him to stop.
Don loved the outdoors. His hobbies included gold panning, metal detecting and camping. He loved exploring California with Mariana, packing a picnic lunch and picking a random direction. Don bought Mariana her first bird and supported her as her bird-keeping hobby kept growing. He even had his own parrot, Lilo, who spent many hours on his shoulder while Don went to the hardware store and worked on projects.
He was very generous, often stopping to help someone on the side of the road or lending a hand with set up and takedown when his wife had a bird club event. He was a kind and loving man who will be dearly missed by his many friends and family members.
A memorial page for Don is on the Veterans Legacy Memorial website: (vlm.cem.va.gov). To access the page, type his last and first names in the search boxes and the year of death (2025).
Don was preceded in death by his father, John Ivers, mother, Vera (Babe) Ivers and sister, Linda Trickey.
He is survived by his wife, Mary Ann (Mariana) Mejia; sister, Donna Jones (David); stepbrother, Norm Halverson (Shawna); aunts, Mary Ellen Connelly, Helen Bravo and Charlotte Palmer; nieces, Jina Clark (Kevin) and Miranda Peck (Rory); nephews, Logan Jones (Dakota), Ben Halverson (Monica) and David Halverson (Monica); numerous grand nephews and nieces and his best friends, Nordan Piehl and Mark King.
Services for Don were held at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 12, at the United States Marine Corps section of the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon, California. A celebration of life followed at the Florin Creek Park Recreation Center in Sacramento.