OZARK…  Jasper (Jay) Garfield Donovan Jr, first born son of Earnestine E. Donovan and Jasper Garfield Donovan Sr. Jay entered this world on October 16, 1946, at Eastern Maine General Hospital in Penobscot County Bangor, Maine and left his family behind on May 6, 2022.

      Jay spent the early years of his life working for his father on one of the many excellent potato producing farms of Ashland in Aroostook County, Maine. Jay graduated from Ashland High School in 1965, he stood out as one of their star varsity basketball players and naturally excelled in his FFA classes. He later was stationed in Italy while serving his country in the US Army from 1965 to 1968. On Sgt. Donovan’s return home, he traveled south to Houlton, Maine where he helped build Interstate 95. Jay’s next journey was further south, still to Bangor, Maine Penobscot County, back to where he was born. He then was hired on at General Electric Co. as a machinist and remained there for 33 years retiring in 2002. Jay also owned and operated a 135-acre tree farm in Levant, Maine upon which he cleared fields and grew fresh vegetables and potatoes to sell.

      It was just after starting his job at General Electric Co. that Jay met and soon wed Constance (Connie) Marie Grant of Island Falls, Maine. Jay and Connie only recently on April 25th, 2022, celebrated their 52nd anniversary of the marriage that gave them two sons, John Arthur age 51 and James Alan age 50, both of Ozark, AL. Together they contributed their time and efforts in running the place Jay had named “Triple J Tree Farm”. Everyone pulled their weight. Upon retiring, Jay and Connie became snowbirds, traveling to Ozark, Alabama in Dale County for the first time in the winter of 2003-2004 where they soon bought a modest brick ranch rambler home, and so the adventures progressed of keeping dual homes for 12 more years. In 2015, Jay finally cemented his plan to have his sons permanently move to Ozark, as he missed their company while “away”. Thus, Jay decided to sell everything and move down south to Alabama for good and uprooted the lives of his sons and took them with him and Connie. Now in all his spare retirement time, he and his family will be together again, forever.

      Jay was happy in his last days, but finally succumbed to the progression of the diabetes he suffered with twenty plus years and its toll on his body, coupled with the breathless effects of a ten plus year battle with COPD. He was a big man and fought to the end. Jay was predeceased by his paternal grandparents, John and Tressa Donovan; his maternal grandparents, W. Ernest and Dora Kent Sheafe; as well as his parents, Jasper G. Donovan Sr. and Earnestine Donovan; two brothers, Ronald Ernest and Fredrick Wayne Donovan; a half-brother, Dennis Garfield Donovan and a half sister, Lula Nygaard Jole of Janesville, Wisconsin, both of whom were born to Jay’s father in a previous marriage; many aunts and uncles, cousins, former classmates and friends. Jay is survived by only one immediate family member, his sister, Dorretta Carney of E. Millinocket, Maine; sister-in-law, Margaret McWhinnee, the wife of his brother Fredrick; as well as several nieces and nephews. Jay also leaves behind a good reputation to be remembered by his friends and all who knew him, as well as his wife, Connie; two sons he loved, John Donovan and partner Rebecca Carlise and James Donovan and wife Brenda.