Community activist.
Born at Saint John, New Brunswick on 17 November 1920 to Eva Laurence Torrence (?-1990) and Francis Joseph Donegani (1877-1964), he moved with his family to Winnipeg in 1927. After attending Grosvenor School and upon graduating from St. John’s College School, he joined the family business, operating Fort Garry Dyers and Cleaners for over three decades. At a supper dance at Jack’s Place on Pembina Highway in 1941, he met Frances Elizabeth “Bette” Slocomb (1919-2014). They married and went on to have three children. During the Second World War, he served with the Royal Canadian Air Force and was stationed in Tofino, British Columbia.
Throughout most if his adult life, he was part of the Lions Club of Winnipeg. He was elected President in 1963. In 1982, he co-chaired the Lions Club Multiple 5M Convention in Winnipeg. On numerous occasions he received the Club’s 100% Attendance Award. From 1997 through 1999, he served as President of the Lions Club of Winnipeg Housing Centres. In 1998, he was Lion of the Year, and received the 50-year Monarch Milestone Chevron Award in 2007.
At age 50, he retired from the family business and became an accredited commercial real estate appraiser, working at Aronovitch and Leipsic, Royal Trust, and Browaty and Associates. He was also a voracious reader and a history buff, enjoyed gardening, and was an amateur painter, an accomplished bridge player, and an avid Winnipeg Blue Bombers fan.
He died at Winnipeg on 14 May 2009 and was buried in the Saint John’s Anglican Cathedral Cemetery.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 20 May 20 2009.
“James Edgerton Donegani,” the Joseph Donegani, Somerset, Norfolk, Derbyshire Family Tree; Ancestry.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 21 January 2025
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