Diane/Don (Doc) Hohnecker/Latham:
CLASS OF 1959
Dubuque High SchoolClass of 1959
Dubuque, IA
Diane/Don (Doc)'s Story
Donald (Doc) Diane ( Hohnecker) Latham.
After High School
1959-2008
After we graduated from Dubuque Senior High School, Diane and I were married on Thanksgiving day, 11/26/59. We raised 4 great son¿s. I went into the Navy 3/26/1960 and got out 3/26/1962. Diane enrolled at Dubuque Beauty Academy and became a licensed beautician.
Our oldest son, Danial was born while I was on active duty aboard the aircraft carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA-42) stationed in the Mediterranean Sea. Dan served aboard the USS Iowa and now lives in Three Rivers, Mi. He has 3 children and has his own tractor trailer and drives coast to coast. Our second son, David, spent 20 years in the Navy as a submariner sonar tech. He served aboard many fast attack sub¿s and retired as a Senior Chief. He has 2 children and lives in Remington, Va. and works for Lockheed Martin & Security Sys.
Our third son, Daren, graduated from Iowa State with a degree in computer science. He lives in Ham Lake, Mn. and has 2 children. He is a project manger for Symantec Securities in the twin cites. Our forth son, Donald ( DJ ) was in the Navy for 6 years, also a submariner, and was a ¿ Plank Holder¿ aboard the USS Annapolis, SSN-760. He lives in Uncasville, Ct. and has 3 children. He is a heating and A/C service tech.
When I returned home from the Navy I went to work for Dubuque Packing co. and completed a 4 year electrical apprenticeship. I worked there for 25 years before leaving in 1986 after they had closed and reopened as FDL foods. We had purchased a small farm north of Balltown, Ia. and enjoyed it very much. Diane worked off and on as a beautician but most of her time was spent working hard on the farm and raising our 4 boys. Not an easy task. We put our farm up for sale, in January 1986, and moved to Southern Maine where I went to work as a nuclear electrician at the Portsmouth Naval Ship Yard, a submarine...Expand for more
repair yard, in Portsmouth, NH.
Diane took a position as a cosmetology instructor in Rochester, NH. and became the head instructor and enjoyed her work for 8 years.
In December 1993 I excepted a transfer to the Trident Submarine Base in Kings Bay, Ga. I worked at the base on subs and Diane managed the beauty shop on the Navy base.
In May 1995 I excepted a position as a Electrical Quality Assurance Inspector at the Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Navy moved us, and all of our belongings, there on the 25th. of May 1995. The Navy gave us a very nice house to live in. The house was right on the cliffs above the Atlantic Ocean and we dearly loved it. Diane started out managing the beauty shop at the base but soon tired of that and went to work as a teller at the base bank. The Navy sent us back several times a year for a vacation and we would fly back to Dubuque to visit. Every time we came back we would spend time in Florida looking for a place to live after retirement. We did not want to live up north in the cold and snow. We had been to long in the warm weather. On one of our trips back we spent a week at a retirement development in Florida call The Villages. We ended up buying property there and having a home built. We spent 8 years working at Guantanamo and for the most part, enjoyed it very much. Things really started changing when they started building the prisons for the Taliban prisoners they were bring in. I spent a lot of time at the prisons while they were being built, and there were so many military coming on base, that we just didn¿t feel comfortable anymore. So I retired and they moved us to our new home, here in The Villages, in January 2003. We do a lot of golfing and many other activities. We travel every summer and try to meet up with several of our son¿s and their families.
Dubuque will always be home. We do have 2 small plots in the St. John¿s cemetery in Dubuque, where we will spend eternity.
After we attended our 50th class reunion. Don got very sick and passed away on October 11,2009 from a very aggressive type of colon cancer.
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