PrimeTimers

Our plan is over time to interview various people in PrimeTimers and put their stories here so we get to know each other.

We begin this month with Don and Jane Dahl who used to produce our monthly newsletter. For several years they also served on the PrimeTimers Leadership Team and helped in the 2-4 year old Sunday school class–from one end of the spectrum to the other.

From left to right: Sandra and Paul Gattozzi, Don and Jane Dahl, Alma Frits.

Don and Jane first met while attending San Pedro High School in southern California. World War II interrupted their growing friendship when Don, at eighteen, joined the armed forces and at age nineteen became a pilot and Second Lieutenant in the Air Corps. While never sent overseas, he spent many exciting hours teaching other young men to fly. In 1946, while home on leave, he and Jane were married. It was not the wedding they had always planned, but it was war-time. They were married by a Justice of the Peace at Quartzsite, Arizona, at two in the morning! (Just so you know, their parents were with them).

In 1952 after receiving his discharge from the Air Corps, and attending USC, Don went to work for the Pacific Telephone Company in San Francisco. For the last twelve of his thirty-two year employment, he was the head to the tax department (for the phone company, not the IRS).

Rev. Billy Graham shaking hands with Don Dahl in Oakland, California in the early 1970′s.

Don is one of six children and became a Christian and was baptized at age thirteen. Jane, an only child, made a personal commitment to Jesus in 1963 following a lecture by Miss A. Wtherell Johnson, founder of Bible Study Fellowship. They joined Golden Hills Community Church in 1997 shortly after moving to Oakley from their retirement home at Lake Berryessa. Both Don and Jane say, (with great thanksgiving), that they have found their spiritual home at Golden Hills Community Church and in PrimeTimers class, under the inspired preaching/teaching of Pastor Larry Adams and Pastor Rick Moe.

Don and Jane now boast of two sons, two daughters-in-laws, four grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

In her mid-eighties, Jane authored two books. Both books were inspired by her mother’s childhood experiences in the early 1900′s. [Editor's Note: These are great books for teaching strong values to anyone, but especially elementary and teenage kids]. The two books are:

• Gertie’s Real Life Adventures
• Gertie, GUPs and the Bloomer Girls

[Editor's Note: If you would like to know more about these "Gertie" books, or purchase a copy, (they make great birthday or Christmas gifts), click here and it will take you to the CrossBooks Publishing website where you can "read all about it"].

Earlier in her life Jane also co-authored two other books:

• Teach Me, Please Teach Me–It outlines simple lessons and ways to teach the mentally handicapped that Jesus loves them and wants to be their Friend and Savior.
• Look At Me, Please Look At Me–It recounts the actual responses to this teaching method by the students in a special education class Jane taught.

Needless to say, since moving from their “retirement home” at Lake Berryessa, the Dahl’s have stayed busy in their “post-retirement” years. We’re glad they are part of our PrimeTimers class.

The cover of Jane’s latest book.