Tarrant County - Obituaries - Donnatella Christine Hinkle ******************************************************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Cheryl Crump Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ******************************************************************************** Teacher, mom made 'the best of things' By MITCH MITCHELL Star-Telegram Staff Writer DONNATELLA CHRISTINE HINKLE FORT WORTH -- Donnatella Christine Hinkle had a calling to be a teacher, friends and family said. She taught third grade at Mary Louise Phillips Elementary School in Fort Worth and was named teacher of the year after three years. "One kid couldn't make it to school on time because her mom wouldn't wake her up, so my wife bought the girl an alarm clock," said her husband of almost three years, John Hinkle. "And from then on, the kid was the first one at school and would wait for my wife in the mornings." Mrs. Hinkle died Tuesday, four years after being diagnosed with breast cancer. She was 34. Instead of a funeral, family and friends will gather Saturday for a celebration of her life. On Thursday, Phillips students released pink balloons in her honor, her husband said. "She always seemed to make the best of things," John Hinkle said. "She liked to go out, liked to travel. ... But cancer slowly wears you out." Mrs. Hinkle was born Oct. 28, 1972, in Tehran, Iran. She kept a blog at our-miracle-child.blogspot.com and filled it with information about her daughter, Gabrielle Teryza-Annee Hinkle, 10 months old. Before she died, Mrs. Hinkle bought enough birthday cards to last her daughter into adulthood, according to a friend. The couple discovered in May 2006 that Mrs. Hinkle was pregnant. "She had just gone through a procedure to take care of a spot on her lung, and they saw this small spot on her ovary," John Hinkle said. "The doctor comes back after they do some more tests and says: 'That's not cancer. You're pregnant.' We were thinking he must have been looking at the wrong chart." Other survivors include her mother, Claude Lawson; brother, Christopher Lawson; and grandmothers, Erminia Bourdon and Helene Lawson. Services A memorial and celebration will be at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Legacy of Love Memorial in Foster Park, off Overton Park Drive East in Fort Worth.