Donna Selby Ikenson, beloved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, passed away peacefully in her sleep on June 11, 2025 after enduring cancer treatment for several months. Donna, 86, rejoins her husband of more than six decades, Frederick Lyle Ikenson, who unexpectedly died last year.

Donna was born to Marguerite Jeanne d'Arc Belanger and Thomas William Selby in Drummondville, Quebec, on May 11, 1939. She is survived by three sons (Daniel, Alexander, and Benjamin), six grandchildren (Anna, Samuel, Hayden, Abigail, Ella, and Henry), one great-granddaughter (Ava), three siblings (Louise, Peter, and Charles), two sisters-in-law (Suzanne and Debs), and numerous nephews and nieces.

Donna grew up on the banks of the Saint-François River, in Drummondville, where she played ice hockey and basketball, and indulged in occasional prank calls to local grocers:

"Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"

"Oui, yes."

"Well why don't you let him out?!!!"

An adventurous spirit, she moved to New York City after high school, and worked as a flight attendant and reservations agent, first for Eastern Airlines and then for Air France. Here, she met and fell in love with her colleague, Frederick. They married in 1963 and raised three boys in New York and the Washington, DC area.

Donna was known for her humility, kindness, fortitude, thrift, practicality, penchant for mischief and sense of humor — and for her countless endearing personality quirks. She loved refurbishing old furniture, cooking improvised meals with whatever was on hand, and working in her garden, where she eschewed chemical pesticides and instead used old Folger's coffee tins to capture invasive black vine weevils. Her youngest grandson, when assigned to write an essay in the fifth grade about a person he much admired, wrote that "Nanny Donna" was "legendary and exquisite" and "very down to Earth. After all, her favorite food is bread and butter."

This extraordinary soul was, above all, devoted to caring for her loved ones, who are now and forever bereft by her mortal departure.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the American Cancer Society.