Dawn Hope Reizer, who passed away on April 5, 2007, was born Dawn Hope Taylor to Stanley Morgan Taylor and Amanda Taylor on August 6, 1918 in Dubuque, Iowa. She was one of four children and attended the University of Dubuque before it was common for women. While she was a homemaker most of her life, she was an avid seamstress as she could make old things new and new things better and eventually designed her own clothes.

Dawn and her recently deceased husband of 66 years, Harry L. Reizer, were avid outdoor advocates throughout their lives, and they often reminisced of swimming, canoeing and ice skating along the Mississippi. They traveled, canoed and camped well into their seventies.
Dawn and Harry were married on October 12, 1940, on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi. A simple ceremony began 66 years of marriage where Dawn was a military and civil servant's wife and mother of two sons, David and James. Dawn and the family's travels provided homes in Dubuque, Iowa, and Fort Sheridan, Illinois, after WWII, Tokyo, Japan, during the Korean War, then back to the USA, living in Columbus, Ohio, and Champaign, Illinois, prior to two years in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where Dawn was an instructor at the Ethiopian Child Center. Her family lineage professes to have included the first non-native birth in Iowa. She once had tea with Eleanor Roosevelt while in Japan, and she and her husband were twice invited to Emperor Haile Selassie's Imperial Palace for Christmas Dinner while in Ethiopia. Dawn was a Life Member of Grand Iowa Chapter 125 of the Order of Eastern Star in Dubuque, Iowa, and a Life Member of Disabled American Veterans' Auxiliary-Golden State Chapter, Salinas.

A life-long hobby of painting began in high school and college and later in Japan. Dawn's painting became prolific during her stay in Ethiopia and later along the California coast as she established her own style of painting using both brush and pallet knife. In 1960, Dawn and family relocated to Santa Barbara, California, where she was a charter member of the Goleta Valley Art Association. Dawn had also been a member of the Dubuque Junior Art Association, the Dubuque Art Association, Narrimasu Art Affiliates in Grand Heights, Japan, and the Community Art Association of Champaign, Illinois.

Dawn and family moved to Monterey in 1969 and finally to Lompoc in 1990. Dawn and Harry, upon his retirement, roamed close to a hundred thousand miles and saw nearly two-thirds of the continental U.S., fishing, boating and making scores of new friends in addition to the many friendships they had nurtured for more than 60 years. Beginning in the late 1980's, Dawn experienced a series of medical issues that eventually led to her husband doing 24/7 home care for years until Dawn was convalesced in recent years at the Convalescent Care Center in Lompoc. She was visited nearly every day by her husband until he passed away on January 3rd of this year.

The surviving family believes that Dawn sought to reunite with her husband. Quite possibly her wishes were fulfilled as communicated through her daughter-in-law, Evalyn:

My visitor didn't show today,
I wonder where he could be?
Ten-thirty has long come and gone, could he have forgotten me?

I'd hear his walker shuffle in,
and then I'd see his face.
He'd greet with kisses-66 or more, followed by a long and loving embrace.

He'd sit close by to say our prayers, then croon some of our songs.
I'd gaze intently at his face, and know we two belonged.

Sometimes confused as how we're linked, but connected we are, I'm sure. Each line in his face had a story to tell, of a love tested through time that endured.

How dapper, how gallant, how handsome, this man! who faithfully saw me each day.
I wonder where in the world he could be? I hope nothing's happened-I pray.

I now wait each day for my dear visitor. Some see me, but none are the One. I need to see-I need to be, with the one who my life had begun.

The days go by, the weeks, the months, not one, not two, but three.
I'll carry on and watch and wait,
'til my beloved half I'll see.

I finally hear footsteps-see a bright light, it's He who is at my door.
His pace is quick, his face is smooth, now we can dance-evermore!

Dawn is survived by son David Reizer and wife Judy of Payson, Arizona, son James Reizer and wife Evalyn of Lompoc, grandchildren Krystina Pesterfield of Mesa, Arizona, Bradley Wright of Silver Springs, Maryland, and Heather Wright of San Jose, California, and great grandchildren, Kaitlyn, Abbigayle and James Pesterfield of Mesa, Arizona, sister Elaine Tippe and husband Leo Tippe of Dubuque, Iowa, nephews John and Lee Tippe and nieces Helen Rowe and Ann Taylor and families. A private service was held at Starbuck-Lind Mortuary.