Donald "Don" Wallace Gale's Obituary
Donald “Don” Wallace Gale, 54, passed away quietly at his home in Cottonwood Heights, UT on May 17, 2014 after an intense 3 year battle with cancer.
Born in Chester, PA on May 27, 1959, his first decade was spent growing up in Wisconsin and Maine. He attributes his interests in hockey and other winter sports to these early years. Summers always included spending time at various lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, a pleasure he continued to enjoy all through life. Family vacations included travel to and through many parts of the eastern US which grew into a passion to travel to and explore ever expanding regions.
His next decade was spent growing up in Wilmington, DE where he graduated from Concord High School. Here he developed his early interests in biking and camping. It is also where he developed strong friendships that he maintained throughout his life. He loved to entertain people and get them laughing. As he was a fan of Monty Python at the time, he would often recite whole skits from memory for a laugh. He also developed a strong interest in music, starting with Chicago and Todd Rundgren but his interests grew and expanded with time. He remained a huge Pink Floyd fan. He enjoyed reading too, especially epic sci-fi sagas like Lord of the Rings and Dune.
In the following decade he attended Muskingum University as a biology major and later used this time to develop a better understanding of himself as he traveled the country and worked various jobs. He then obtained leadership training and outdoor educator certification at National Outdoor Leadership School, better known as NOLS. He was very proud to have completed the program which had a strong influence on all that he did with his life.
During the next decade he lived in Santa Fe, NM for a time and was married briefly to Laura Lewallen. This was the time his passion for bike racing grew and found him traveling the country to compete in amateur level races. Also, for him, in-line skating was a natural extension of his ice skating skills that allowed him to skate year-round. Participating in these activities as hard as he did, injuries, especially “road rashes”, were as common to him as colds are to some people. One highlight of this decade has to be his trip to Africa to snowboard down Mt. Kilimanjaro.
By the mid-1990’s he had moved to Salt Lake City, UT where he worked in the two businesses that were also his favorite hobbies, bicycling and skiing. During the summers he could be found at Guthrie Bicycles in SLC and in the winter he worked as a ski instructor at Brighton Ski Resort. While there he met and married, on January 1, 1996, his current wife, Anna Gabrielle “Gabbi” Bomgren Gale, a native of Sweden. In December 1997 they welcomed their first son, Axel David Gale. As a family, they made regular trips to the East Coast to visit family and friends based there.
Another decade found the young family moving to Sweden, close to Gabbi’s family, and welcoming their second son, Liam Gottfrid Gale, in May 2004. For a time he took on the nontraditional role of stay-at-home dad. While Don continued to improve his Swedish, he taught English speaking children at ABC pre-school in Göteborg, Sweden. He continued to ski while in Sweden and especially enjoyed spending time at Ramdalen, Gabbi’s family’s rustic lakeside cabin which had no electricity or running water. Despite the distance, he also continued to bring his family back to the US to visit family and friends here.
By this past decade he and his family had moved back to the Salt Lake City area where they bought a home in the Cottonwood Heights. He went back to the jobs he loved, working in a bike shop, Canyon Bicycles, in the summer and as a ski and snowboard instructor at Brighton in the winter. In their free time the family thoroughly and actively enjoyed all that the area had to offer: biking, hiking, camping, and skiing. They also continued to travel to the East Coast and to Sweden to visit family regularly.
Don strove to live an eco and environmentally friendly lifestyle. He endeavored to make earth-friendly purchases, was proud of the energy-efficient improvements he continued to make to his new home and believed in driving energy-efficient vehicles so where biking wasn’t practical, he used high MPG cars or his favorite motorcycle. Wishing to live healthily, he bought organic products and maintained a vegetarian/macrobiotic diet.
He helped foster his passions for biking, skiing, and hockey in his sons and they now actively participate in all three. This afforded Don the opportunity to be a proud, active, and supportive parent, a role he strongly embraced. As he realized he wasn’t going to win his battle with cancer, he expressed a main regret: that he was no longer going to be able to share in his sons’ future accomplishments and life events or enjoy life with his wife and sons that he loved so much.
He is predeceased by his mother, Marjorie Elizabeth Van Nest Gale, and father, John Martin Thomas Gale. In addition to his family, Gabbi, Axel, and Liam, he is survived by his brothers Thomas [Nancy] of Somerset, NJ, David of Wilmington, DE, and Kenneth [Gail] of Pottstown, PA, and sisters Elizabeth [Jeffery] Kosinski of Hockessin, DE and Susan of Wilmington, DE, as well as nieces, nephews, and quite a few other relatives including cousins and in-laws. He loved and is loved by a large community of friends and family, many of whom he was able to share his final days with. He will be deeply missed by all.
A memorial service for Don will be held at 1pm on May 31st at Brighton Ski Resort’s Milly Chalet. Being held outdoors, weather permitting, comfortable attire is acceptable. All are welcome. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a contribution to The Fund for Axel and Liam, intended to assist them with their futures, including education, as Don would have wished. For more information and to contribute, please visit https://www.youcaring.com/The-Fund-for-Axel-and-Liam.
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