Throughout our lives, we begin as a son, daughter and offspring, then sometimes sister, brother, and sibling, and on occasion a spouse or parent. There comes the moment when we are the eldest generation, becoming the sudden orphan late in life. On March 1, 2025, John and I said farewell to his mother, Dagmar Halamka, bringing to a close that time in our lives when we were son and daughter.
Dagmar was born in Riga, Latvia, and life brought her at a young age to Iowa when World War II changed and uprooted her family’s life. She is survived by her youngest brother Voldy, and predeceased by her mother Jenina, her father Stanislav, and her brother George. She married John Sr after high school and she worked hard to graduate from college and law school to practice law and teach business law in California. She and her husband were blessed to have their son John in their lives and always encouraged his resilience, curiosity and perseverance. Dagmar was beloved by her decades of business law students and they kept her in their lives long after they graduated.
In the years since her husband John Sr. passed away in 2013, she never completely recovered from that loss. She found ways to keep active, until the pandemic kept her isolated thousands of miles away from family. When he was finally able to do so, John began to travel several times a year to California to visit and help her maintain her home.
On the occasion of her 80th birthday in 2022, he arrived to find her feeling unwell so the birthday gathering was postponed. By the middle of the night, she had collapsed and an ambulance was called.
The brain abscess she had that day nearly ended her life that year, but months of intensive care in the hospital brought her to a stable moment where he was able to get her on a plane and to Unity Farm Sanctuary. She was in hospice at the Sanctuary for 6 months, but with the care of family, her hospice nurse Erin, and her live-in aide Maud, she regained a new baseline for enjoying life. This led to a period of good physical activity paired with some issues of dementia and brain injury from the abscess. The Reflections memory suite at the Residences at Valley Farm in Ashland gave her safety, community and dignity.
6 days ago, she experienced a sudden decline in her health. If you knew Dagmar, you knew she truly did not want to ever spend time in a hospital, and she refused to go this week. Hospice began, and on March 1 she left peacefully in the late morning. An extra blessing on February 28 was that she thanked John for everything he did for her over the years, and told him she loved him. It was a powerful moment of closure
This spring her ashes will rejoin her husband’s ashes in Southern California and some of her colleagues will join John in remembrance and a celebration of life. She was proud of the Sanctuary and all the residents, and has left her financial legacy to support the future here, with focus on education in honor of her love of teaching.
In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory can be made to Unity Farm Sanctuary, or Dowling Catholic High School of Des Moines Iowa.
