Donald Castonia

[Key Guy]

From the Orlando Sentinel

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-bizdonald-castonia-obit-062709062709jun27,0,3279095.story

Quote:

Sixty-two years ago, while working at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Moorhead, Minn., a young Mary Alice Christensen was shown a photo of Donald R. Castonia.

"I thought he was very handsome," she recalled. So she asked his sister, Gwen, who had shown her the picture, to introduce them.

The two started dating but broke up shortly thereafter. Mary Alice was soon engaged to someone else. Months later, when she broke off that engagement, she found out that Castonia was then engaged.

It would be another year before the two would make contact again — and this time neither one was engaged.

"I was on my knees praying," she said. "And then he called. He was major in my life after all that."

Their long marriage would take them from the Midwest to Florida as Castonia served as a pastor in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Castonia died of cancer at his Apopka home Monday. He was 83.

The couple married in 1948 and moved to Lincoln, Neb., where he attended Union College to study theology. He received his bachelor's degree in 1953, and they moved to Colorado. There he started in the ministry as a peddler of religious books, known as a colporteur pastor, earning $50 a month, his wife said.

Later he pastored several Seventh-day Adventist churches in Colorado and Nebraska until the late 1960s, when the couple and their two children moved to Bradenton. In the late 1970s, after he served as pastor of Bradenton and Palmetto Seventh-day Adventist churches, they moved to Orlando.

For six years, he was pastor of the Florida Hospital Church in Orlando. He served as pastor for two years at a church in Lakeland and finally returned to Orlando as a trustee of the Florida Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. He retired in 1995.

Castonia was born on a farm in Mentor, Minn., during the Great Depression. His family was so poor that he and his three siblings were split up among family members.

Just a few years before marrying, he almost died fighting in Germany during World War II.

"He absolutely wasn't supposed to make it," his wife said, recalling the bloody battle Castonia endured. He went without food for five days and witnessed the death of other soldiers. He crawled into a foxhole and drank water from the roots of trees to survive, she said. He earned a Purple Heart and two Bronze Stars for his service.

In retirement, Castonia spent most of his time with his children, grandchildren and church family. He also visited relatives in Minnesota.

Described by his wife as loving, honest and decent, Castonia had a remarkable ability to make others laugh with quick one-liners.

"It was a love fest, and a marvelous ride," Mary Alice Castonia said. "In a million years, I couldn't have had a better husband."

Castonia also is survived by one daughter, Rachel Rios of Apopka; one son, Paul Castonia of Longwood; two sisters, Gwen Erickson and Miriam Erickson, both of Moorhead; and four grandchildren.

Baldwin-Fairchild Funeral Home, Altamonte Springs Chapel, is handling arrangements.

[nuff sed]

I knew Don Castonia well. He and I worked together for a number of year. His wife is my wife's best friend. They taught together at Orlando Junior Academy for 13 years. He will missed. We are getting ready to attend his funeral a couple of hours from now.