Donald Henry Olsen's Obituary
Donald H. Olsen, age 83, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, formerly of Oshkosh, passed away on March 9, 2019 from complications of lung cancer at Unity Hospice in De Pere, Wisconsin. He was born on January 8, 1936 to Frank and Angelica Olsen in Cook County, Illinois (Chicago).
His family was from Copenhagen, Denmark and he only spoke Danish until entering Kindergarten. He went to grade school in the Chicago area up until the sixth grade. For seventh grade he was in St. Louis Park, Minnesota and then moved to Hopkins, Minnesota for eighth grade. He was proud that he had played basketball with these eighth graders before leaving for Marshfield, Wisconsin, who later went on to win three straight high school state championships.
Don moved to Marshfield, Wisconsin to live with his older brother and played basketball and football in the ninth grade. He moved to Oshkosh to finish his high school education as part of the Class of 1954 but didn't graduate because he began working to provide for his mother. He later got his GED while in the service. Don worked at Sexton Can and was the only guy who knew how to operate the can spraying machine. Don worked for his brother-in-law, Jack Mitchell, at his corrugated box company at various times. He once ran a fork lift and had to move a load from Georgia Pacific to Jack's place and he was going too fast and caught the truck on a door frame and smashed it up. Don worked at the movie theater for a time but was fired when he let a bunch of his classmates into the theater by opening the back door. The manager noticed there were few movie tickets sold compared to the number of people watching the movie. "Hey, what's going on here?" the movie theater manager asked before he fired Don. Don was caught smoking by his High School football coach and was instantly kicked off the team. While in high school he skipped school various days to play pool, eventually getting caught and having to face his mother.
Don lived in Oshkosh until he joined the Army in 1958. He was well known as the third best pool player in Oshkosh at the time. He served for our country for two years and was discharged in 1960. While in the Army, he met his beautiful, beautiful wife Judy. They were married in Long Beach, California in 1960. Don sent out many job applications throughout the country, one for a brassiere company. He was given a job interview with the Rath Meat Packing Company of Waterloo, Iowa. He got the job as a salesman in 1963, the first one in the company without a college degree. After training with the packing company he was moved to the Chicago area. Don built a sales territory from 3,000 pounds of meat sold per week up to 35,000 pounds per week.
Around 1966 Don went to work for Hildchem company. Don worked his way up to be one of the top salesmen in the chemical sales company working in the Milwaukee area.
Don’s dream was to own and run his own business and that was something that was important to him. He came home one day and said, “We are moving to Oshkosh.” The Olsen family moved to Oshkosh in 1971 and Don started his own cleaning business. Olsen's Professional Maintenance Service (OPM) operated until 1987. OPM sponsored a number of bowling teams in Oshkosh. Don took great pride in the fact that those teams won 7 out of 8 championships during his sponsorship. Don suffered a stroke at that time and his life changed significantly. He had to sell the cleaning business. After the sale of his company he worked as a taxi driver, Schwann’s salesman and began working at Walmart later retiring at the age of 62.
Don loved to play sports, especially basketball and football in High School. He enjoyed downhill skiing, was a top bowler and greatly enjoyed fishing throughout his life. Don was naturally athletic and found that he was good at most sports and physical activities. Throughout his lifetime Don followed the Packers, Badgers, Brewers, and Bucks. Don even played one year of semi-pro football for the Oshkosh Comets and had interest from Packer scouts.
When living in Oshkosh, Don has many great memories of his children Kathy, Sandy, and Margie. He loved to hang out with them and their friends and he shared many stories about the fun times he had with them.
Don is survived by his wife Judy, daughters Kathy (Kent Hubbard) Sabin, Margie (Wade) McKnight, grandson Chad (Brittany) Sabin, granddaughter Cortney (Robert) Zinda, grandsons Sean McKnight, Jacob McKnight, his great-grandson Landon Sabin and many nieces and nephews. He is preceded in death by daughter Sandy Olsen, parents Frank and Angelica Olsen, brother Frank Olsen and sister Evelyn Mitchell.
This obituary was personally dictated by Don on February 10, 2019.
Instead of flowers a memorial is being established.
The funeral service for Donald will be held on Saturday, March 16, 2019 at 1 pm at Fiss & Bills-Poklasny Funeral Home, 865 S. Westhaven Dr., Oshkosh, WI. Rev Tim Greenwald will be the officiant. A time of visitation will be held on Friday, March 15, 2019 from 4pm until 7pm at the funeral home and on Saturday from 12pm until the time of service at the funeral home. Burial will be Monday, March 18, 2019 at 10 am at Riverside City Cemetery, 1901 Algoma Blvd., Oshkosh, WI.
The family wants to thank Unity Hospice of De Pere, Wisconsin for their wonderful care of Don during the four weeks that he was there. He loved the food there (especially the Sherbet) and watched lots of sports on the big TV.
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