Madonna Jeanne Hogben, wife of longtime Rye resident George Loder Hogben, died on August 10, 2017.
Born in Buffalo on March 27, 1940, Donna, as she was called, was the daughter of Edward and Margaret Mischler. She attended Holy Angels Academy and earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from D’Youville College where she was elected into Sigma Theta Tau, the national honor society of nursing. She also earned a Master’s in Nursing Sciences from N.Y.U.
She met her future husband, Dr. George Loder Hogben, a Rye native, on a blind date. He proposed at Buffalo’s Ted’s Hot Dogs, and the couple married in 1963.
That year they moved to Greenwich Village where Donna taught nursing at Mount Sinai. They moved to Park Slope, and she studied horticultural therapy at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. She loved to garden and arrange flowers. In 1970, they moved to Rye.
While raising two children, Mrs. Hogben volunteered with the Rye Youth Council, Rye Youth Players, Safe Rides, and Westchester’s Stop DWI initiative.
She and her husband sailed out of the American Yacht Club, racing 210s and Etchells. The family attended Church of the Resurrection.
In 2002, they moved into Blind Brook Lodge where she served as board president.
Donna Hogben struggled with pulmonary fibrosis for several years and received a double lung transplant in 2005.
In addition to her husband of 54 years, she is survived by her son George Edward, her daughter Julie, and her granddaughter Isabel. She also leaves behind two brothers, Paul and John; her sister-in-law Monica; cousins Sue Kadisch and Mary Carol Dorr; several beloved nieces and nephews; and many dear friends.
Her cousin, Revered James F. Dorr, C.M., will say a memorial Mass at 11 a.m. on August 26, at Church of the Resurrection in Rye. A reception will follow at American Yacht Club.