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Donna Levy Dague - Class of 1964
 Ed and Donna Dague. The two met when she was a student at Russell Sage College and he was a senior at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a radio host on WRPI. Courtesy of Harris Dague Donna Dague, wife of late Capital Region anchorman Ed Dague, died on Dec. 31, 2021 at age 75. "She was the pitbull," said her son, Harris Dague. "People either liked her and respected her or they feared her." When anyone told Rebecca Dague that they knew her mom, she said she braced herself. "It could go one of two ways," said the daughter of Donna L. Dague who died on Friday. "They either loved her or they didn't." That's because Donna Dague was outspoken — a vigilant wife who fiercely protected her husband, the late local television news anchor Ed Dague — both at the news stations where he appeared nightly in the prime time slot and later at a memory care facility in Colonie where he lived out his last days with dementia. "She was the pit bull," her son Harris Dague said. "People either liked her and respected her or they feared her. But she got it done for him." Her obituary, printed in the Times Union on Thursday, does not give a cause of death for the 75-year-old, which her son said they want to keep private. Nor does it give a lot of information on her life. Harris Dague said that is because his mother didn't want an obituary. "We wanted to do it because a lot of my dad's success was due to her nature," Harris Dague said. Besides, he added, "She wasn't here to yell at us. We wanted to honor her." Her son says that Donna Dague was born in Newburgh. Her father was a World War II veteran who, after the war, worked as a rural postman. Her mother sold Singer sewing machines. After high school NFA, Donna Dague aspired to become a teacher and enrolled in Russell Sage College. That's how she met Ed Dague who was a senior at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a radio host on WRPI. "My mother and her roommate wrote him a nasty letter after she heard my father making fun of a guy on the radio," Harris Dague said. "She didn't like that and told him 'you shouldn't make fun of that guy.' My father liked my mother's handwriting more than her roommate's. He wrote her back and the rest is history." The two married in 1968. She was a teacher for a time at Zoller Elementary School in Schenectady before the two children arrived. After that, Rebecca and Harris Dague said, she devoted her life to caring for them and their father. While her maternal side was reserved for the home, everyone at the TV stations where her husband worked – the Capital Region's CBS and NBC affiliates – knew Donna Dague. Harris Dague said she pored over every detail of his contracts, including his clothing allowances and hours worked. She also had opinions on his co-anchors. "She had opinions and the staff, management and producers knew what they were," Harris Dague said. "Like a lot of women of that generation, she didn't get a lot of credit. But she was right there with him. She did all the dirty work." She also did everything at home, her son said, from banking, cooking, cleaning and child care — even laying out her husband's outfits daily — ensuring her husband didn't have to worry about a thing. "She was a good mother," Harris Dague said. "She applied that passion with my dad, certainly to me and my education. The stories are a legion of times of how she embarrassed us with her lack of filter." After Ed Dague retired due to health concerns, Harris Dague said she cared for him as long as she could in their Saratoga County home. When his dementia took hold and Donna Dague admitted him to a full-time care facility, she put her assertive personality to work advocating for him. She was there twice a day, every day, for two years, regardless of the weather, making sure, according to her obituary that "he was clean, safe, fed, and looked after. She made sure he looked good, hair combed and that he had he on clean button down shirts and khakis. She'd say 'Ed, I don't care if you're here, I don't care if you are sick, you'll always dress well as long as I'm around.' " "I used to stand behind my mother when she was talking to the staff, trying to apologize for her," Rebecca Dague said. "We would tell them, don't worry, we will calm her down." Harris Dague said the driving and caring for their father took a toll on his mother, emotionally and physically. She began to fail. "Depression, emotional issues," Harris Dague recalled. "I told her to take a week off, don't go. But she wouldn't change. We knew it was killing her, but she wanted to do it. She stood up for him; and he got better treatment because of her advocacy. She wouldn't change anything." Ed Dague died in 2019. At the time of his death, former colleagues described the award-winning newsman as having an unparalleled depth of knowledge he mined to establish himself as a legendary broadcaster. ***************************************************************
As per her sister's obituary (Ann Levy Sprague - Class of
1968), Donna has passed.
http://www.nfayearbooks.com/mboard3/msg/6056.html****************************************************************
Submitted by Amy Kolman <amydkolman@yahoo.com> on 05/Aug/2023 ... I am very sad to learn that both Donna and Ann Levy have passed away. We were close childhood friends and neighbors and I have many clear memories of our shared adventures and experiences. Donna and I were faithful fans of the Friday night Fright Night Movies on TV. We would watch them in her family's basement and then I would run home in the dark, deliciously terrified. Many of our games were imaginative and creative: We constructed a small theater stage, made clothes pin or finger puppets, then wrote and performed plays. A favorite tv show of the time was Robin Hood. Along with other kids, we'd take turns being various characters from the show and roam the neighborhood making up our own story lines. On hot summer days, we would sit under the weeping willow tree and play endless games of canasta. Sometimes we sat for hours on a fallen tree in the small wooded area at the end of O'Dell Street and sing show tunes at the top of our lungs. There was a neighborhood bicycle club, many games of punch ball, and an annual Halloween party, with food, games, prizes and pony rides. Days seemed to last forever. My heartfelt condolences to Wendy. |
Donna Levy Dague - Class of 1964 It is hard writing an
obituary for someone who did not want one. But, sometimes it
is necessary, because those people may not have realized how
special they were. Donna L. Dague passed away peacefully on
12/31/2021. She was a HUGE character in a world where
increasingly characters are not welcomed. She spoke her mind
(good or bad) in a world where more and more that gets you
in trouble. She sometimes (ok always) lacked a filter. She
was the OG of yentas. She would tell you how it was, and if
you didn’t like it, she would then tell you how it would be,
where to go, how to get there and when to leave. She would
say “you get what you need a lot more quickly by being
direct, if people don’t like that, tough.”
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