William Donald Cox,

William Donald Cox, Sr. (Retired Navy), 82, of Irmo, passed away on Thursday, July 2, 2015. The family will greet friends from 2-3 p.m. on Tuesday, July 7, 2015 at Temples Halloran Funeral Home, 5400 Bush River Road, Columbia, SC 29212. Donald had an uncanny knack of finding ways to use his many skills to help others. For instance, his gardens always produced more vegetables than seemed reasonable to expect. As much as he enjoyed working the garden, he enjoyed giving away the abundance even more. It’s too bad Luther Burbank didn’t have a chance to work with him. He would have also been amazed at Donald’s ability to make anything grow and to create new varieties. His greatest floral accomplishments were his multi-hued Azaleas and African Violets. Food was another of Donald’s passion. His technical skills were impressive; he was equally comfortable cooking, baking, or grilling, and the quality of the finished product was always the same, no matter how many people he cooked for. Feeding 6,000 sailors came as naturally as cooking for his family. His family can attest to his love of food; it was not uncommon for him to plan supper while eating breakfast. Perhaps his favorite pleasure during the past few years was having the time to cruise the grocery store aisle and seeing how many huge cuts of beef and pork he could bring home. Once he got home, he applied his expansive butchery knowledge to create the cuts he wanted for a particular meal. Donald was an avid reader and lover of oral history. He could create a thorough oral book report on the fly and make you feel that you were there with the characters. Even in the last few weeks of his life, people who met Donald soon knew what a great storyteller he was. He punctuated his recollections with incredible detail and his country-flavored witticisms. He personalized his accounts with people’s names, their backgrounds, and details unique to them. To know Donald was to know he loved America and believed in the ideals that the country was founded on. He incorporated strongly held beliefs into his daily life. If he told you he would do something, you could bank on it, and he never made promises he couldn’t keep. Part of his moral center was how he practiced his faith. For years, he enthusiastically supported the Gideons, Wycliff Associates, Cru (formerly Campus Crusade), and the Salvation Army. These charities mattered to him because of personal experiences and connections. Donald found ways to connect higher-level ideals with practical applications. More than anything else, Donald valued his family. Thinking of others and helping them in the particular way that mattered most to them brought him pleasure. He selflessly gave of himself and his resources so that his family, immediate and extended, could benefit. He is survived by his wife Mary R. Cox, children William D. Cox, Jr., Les Williams, and Marjorie Cox Hardin, grandchildren Celeste Back, Brittany Buchanan, Parker Hardin, and Deepmala Ford-Williams, and seven brothers and sisters. He was preceded in death by his parents William Clyde and Fannie Loucretia Gardner Cox and four brothers, Eugene, Kirby, Earl, and Jesse. In Lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to, Saint Andrews Presbyterian Church, 6952 St. Andrews Road, Columbia, SC 29212 or Cru: Celeste Cox Back, Staff #0606261, Mailing to: CRU Contributions PO Box 628222, Orlando, FL 32862 or Wycliffe Associates, William & Donna Cox, Acct #M10713, PO Box 620143, Orlando, FL 32862 website: https://give.wycliffeassociates.org/p-1101-william-and-donna-cox.aspx.