Born December 11, 1929 at Chicago's West Side Hospital to the late Emily and David Carlson, Don was raised by his late Grandfather Rudy and Step-Grandmother, Hilda Mikulicic, on the north side of Chicago.
Educated at Blaine Elementary and Lane Technical High School where he excelled in football, basketball, baseball, softball, and track. One of his most thrilling times in his young life was being selected to be the water boy for the 1943 Chicago Bears championship team.
Following graduation in 1948, he apprenticed at one of the finest architectural millworks company's in the United States.
He married E. Bernice Halvorson in March, 1951. They were blessed with five children: William, Glenn (Pamela), Annette (Sandy), Thomas (Pamela), and Paul (Rebecca). He leaves five grandchildren: Colton, Danielle, Keith Ryan and Sean.
After serving three years of his apprenticeship, he was drafted into the U.S. Army for the Korean War in June, 1951. Two weeks later he fought the great Kansas flood at Fort Reilly, Kansas and was trained by the 5th Army's 10th Mountain Divisions Ski Troopers. He became a Radar operator and served with the 7th Army in Europe. Upon his discharge in 1953, he returned to his apprenticeship and became a journeyman, and then promoted to architectural draftsman.
He pursued a number of evening college architectural courses under the GI Bill while working as an architectural draftsman at a 400 man engineering firm. The most notable projects where Don worked as an architect were Chicago's original McCormick Place, eight high-rise buildings along Chicago's North Lake Shore Drive, and, as a senior architect and project manager for the thirteen airlines at the original O'Hare Airport.
He was offered a position as a production chief in an architectural office to plan the O'Hare expansion for the airline's Technical and Executive committees. He designed and constructed the new McDonald's Corporation Head Quarter's in Oak Brook, IL.
In 1971 he formed an architectural design firm and was a pioneer in the construction management business along with Marietta P. McKay, Donald R. Carlson & Associates, Ltd. After 30 years in business, he was divorced and married Marietta on October 30, 1994. They retired to Breckenridge, Colorado and designed and built their Swiss Chalet at 11,300 foot elevation on North Star Mountain, near the Continental Divide. He was an Avid skier and, along with his wife, skied most of the European Alps, as well as the American Rockies and Sierra Nevada Mountains.
While in Breckenridge he championed a movement to erect a 40 ton granite base holding a life size 10th Mountain Division Bronze Ski Trooper - a memorial to commemorate the 997 troopers killed in action and the 4,000 wounded in WWII. He also designed the 10th Mountain Division's Colorado license plate. In 2007, over 18,000 cars displayed the 10th Mountain plate, creating a $630,000 profit for the State of Colorado.
As a reward for all of his endeavors for the 10th Mountain Division Association, the veterans presented Mr. Carlson with their Distinguished Service Medal, an award that only 200 out of 30,000 veterans have received since WWII ended in 1945.
He was elected to the 2004 State of Colorado's Republican Party as a delegate to the New York Republican convention.
Don and Marietta returned to Chicago in 2005, residing in one of the buildings he had worked on as a draftsman decades earlier.
He is survived by his beloved wife Marietta, nee McKay; four sons, William, Glenn (Pamela), Thomas (Pamela), and Paul (Becki) Carlson; one daughter, Annette (Sandy) Carlson; five grandchildren, Colton, Danielle, Keith, Ryan and Sean Carlson.
Visitation Sunday, July 6, 3 - 9 pm at Drake & Sons Funeral Home, 5303 N. Western Ave., Chicago. Funeral Monday, July 7, 10:30 am from the funeral home to St. Gregory Church. Mass 11:00 am. Interment private. Memorials may be directed to the American Heart Fund. 773-561-6874.