Beck Funeral Home is announcing as a courtesy on behalf of the Olsen family.

Dona Jane (Callihan) Olsen of Nashville, Michigan passed away at age 100 in the early hours of Friday October 18th, 2024.

Dona was born in Edmore, Michigan in 1924. She grew up on a farm in Chesaning, MI, lived through the Great Depression, and played the tuba in the Chesaning High School Marching band. She was known to her family as Gramma Sam.

In 1942 at age 18, she married Burlia Brashier just before he deployed with the Army during WWII. While he was away, Dona worked at the Willow Run Bomber Plant near Ypsilanti, MI (as one of the original “Rosie The Riveters”) with her parents Dale and Eva Callihan.

After the war, Dona raised her family in Bancroft, Michigan. She was known as an avant garde hostess because she served “foreign” foods, like pizza and tacos, at her delightful dinner parties in the 1950s. This was at a time before many people had heard of these foods, let alone eaten them. She loved Mexican food and had often been to the borderlands in Arizona where her parents owned a silver mine they visited regularly.

Dona lived in many places throughout her long life and used her tremendous artistic and design talents to create beautifully decorated homes wherever she went. She had a special eye for design and fashion, and she could sew, cook, landscape, and wallpaper like a pro.

She was a conscientious worker and earned the name “Sam the Janitor” as a joke when she cleaned bathrooms that no one else would touch at a store where she was employed early in her working life. That label later turned into “Gramma Sam,” a beloved nickname for the rest of her days.

Dona sewed many of her own and her childrens’ clothes, including matching square dance dresses for herself and her youngest daughter. She made a Halloween ballerina costume for her older daughter out of a bathing suit and a starched lace curtain, and used an eyeliner pencil to simulate stockings down her daughter’s legs. She sold multi-layer (7 was the highest) professionally decorated wedding cakes, and made colorful cakes with rosettes and piping for each of her four childrens’ birthdays each year. Dona was uniquely creative, resourceful, and skilled.

In her professional life, Dona was an accountant, bookkeeper, and entrepreneur. She owned and operated a grocery store in Edmore, Michigan early on. She also owned and operated the Hastings Flower Shop where she served as the chief designer. And she owned and operated her own real estate company, driving the hills and hollers and walking the mountains of Rabun County, Georgia for many years.

Once she retired, Dona criss-crossed the country for weeks at a time in her camper, first as a single lady looking for adventure and then with her beloved partner, Richard (Dick) Chaffee. Whenever she traveled - by car, plane, or camper - one entire leather suitcase devoted solely to her makeup and perfume was a critical travel item she would not be caught dead without.

Later in life, Dona studied painting and was a prolific and skilled watercolor artist. By around age 70 she was making beautiful, delicate scenes depicting birds, flowers, and natural landscapes that evoked memories of her favorite places and people. And each year she sent hand-painted Christmas cards to family and friends.

Dona was probably the most colorful person in the lives of everyone who knew her. She drove with an ivory handled pistol that she kept in a sock in the glove compartment of her car. From her easy chair, she shot at raccoons through the screen door of her house. She knew every variation of poker and every dirty joke in the book. She proudly recited an eye-popping version of “The Night Before Christmas.” At age 90, she undertook building a rock wall for a flower border around her house. She loved playing the slots and would drive herself to the casino well into her 90s, and when she won you would hear about it. She was unstoppable.

Dona kept a daily ritual of a vodka tonic cocktail made by Dick each afternoon, even after she turned 100 years old. She was the life of the party, a comedienne and an outrageous flirt for her entire life. You could count on her to make hilariously inappropriate comments and off-color jokes until the day she died. She was one of a kind and as Dick said, she was someone who always “spoke her mind.” Even when she shouldn’t. And we loved her for that.

Dona is survived by her four children and their spouses: Terry (and Mary) Brashier, Jane (and Randy) Echtinaw, Chris (and Larry) Dees, and Greg (and Paula) Brashier and their families. She is also survived by her brother, Patrick Callihan and his wife Jean. And she is survived by her beloved longtime partner, Richard Chaffee along with numerous grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the family is asking that any gifts or donations be made in her name to either Stone Ridge Adult Foster Care in Bellevue, Michigan (at 4825 Fruin Rd., Bellevue, MI 49021) or to the Thornapple Valley VFW Post 8260 (at 304 S. State St. Nashville, MI 49073) in Nashville, Michigan.

The family will receive visitors on Wednesday, October 23, 2024 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM at Daniels Funeral Home - Nashville, conveniently located at 9200 E M79 Hwy, Nashville, MI. There will be a small graveside service immediately following at Hastings Township Cemetery.


Funeral arrangements are entrusted to the Daniels Funeral Home - Nashville, conveniently located at 9200 E M79 Hwy, Nashville, MI. For more information, please visit our website at www.danielsfuneralhome.net.