Dianne Elizabeth Boons' Obituary
Obituary for Dianne Elizabeth Green Boons - August 9, 1939 – March 22, 2026
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. Hebrews 4:16
Dianne’s life was so full that it would require a book to do it justice. Chapters would include Childhood and Family, Education, Career(s), Volunteering, Travel, Religion and Spirituality, and more. Quotes interspersed here are from the Bible, the March 2026 Daily Word, and a huge collection of Chinese fortune cookie fortunes, all of which she had posted in her living space.
Dianne was the first born of five children born to William Howard and Louise Chandler Green, Iowans who moved to upstate New York in 1937. In addition to school, of course, her activities included swimming and sailing, band, choir, girl scouts, and church programs. Well-organized and with almost perfect grades even then, she graduated from North Tarrytown High School in 1957. Some of her friendships from that time have continued on to today.
I am lively, filled with awe and wonder.
Studying at Iowa State University, where her parents met, Dianne spent her junior year in the Scandinavian Seminar program and lived that year in Denmark. With that and her other studies, she graduated with honors in 1961, her degree in Modern Languages. A precursor of things to come.
An enthusiastic student in classrooms as well as life, later studies gained her an MBA from Hawaii Pacific University in 1989 (for which the school was proud to say she was the first student ever to graduate from that program with a 4.0 GPA), as well as many short courses over the years. A sampling of the variety includes income tax assistant, accounting, entrepreneurship, real estate, speechcraft, Reiki, TEFL – Teaching English as a Foreign Language, knitting, weaving, crochet, and gemology, to name just some.
The most direct approach isn’t always the best. Use diplomacy.
Dianne had an assortment of jobs in New York, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and California, and finally settled down in Hawaii in 1982. Early work as a journalist gave her a chance to develop writing and organizational skills that led to an assortment of administrative and public relations jobs, including for the Colorado Olympic Committee in 1971-2, community support programs on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation, systems improvement for the New Mexico State Police, running a yarn and weaving store for Greentree Ranch Wools in Colorado, and as asst. to the President of Silver State Airlines in Nevada and California. In Hawaii she worked for 15 years in the law office of Green, Ning, Lilly, and Jones, said Green being her brother Howard, and finally wound down to retirement while managing an apartment building for ten years. And that is when she found her real calling.
With joyful expression, I am creative.
For the rest of her life, Dianne volunteered in more places than any one person can remember. A perfect opportunity to indulge in the arts, her haunts included art museums (Honolulu Museum of Art - HoMA, Shangri-La, Downtown Art Center - DAC, and others), theaters (Honolulu Opera Theater - HOT and others), KHPR public radio, Friends of the Library, offering tax help to people who needed it, teaching English and citizenship studies, docent at The Cathedral of St. Andrew, on
the boards of neighborhood organizations, and at McKinley High School – again, to name just some.
My heart is filled with joy today.
And then there was Travel! Dianne wanted to see the world, understand other cultures, their arts, their people, everything! Between 1981 and 2025, she visited more than 45 countries, of which more than half were somewhere in Asia. But Dianne did not just go, buy some postcards, and come home. She created packages of information after each trip, enhanced by the studying-in-advance she had done before each trip. She studied the languages of places she was going, and in fact one of her activities in the last weeks before she died was to be, again, studying Chinese, the language of a country she had visited at least eight times. (It’s big!) She made some lasting friendships on those trips, just one of the rewards of travel.
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31
Dianne had an actively seeking spiritual life. It began in the Methodist Church in Schenectady, NY, traveled through other branches of Christianity, Hinduism, Unity Church, and many online teachers discovered during COVID. She finally landed in The Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Honolulu, a church and community that satisfied her desire for tradition while also giving her a comforting but still challenging theology. (And another place to volunteer.) (And another subject to research in depth.)
And WALK! Dianne walked, a lot! Many people will mention that as part of their image of her, and many walked with her. Her interest in health was non-stop, and ironically there was some consensus that she did as well with her cancer as she did because, except for the cancer she was very healthy. Especially in her retirement, she was able to walk from her condo to many of the places she volunteered, another plus to her overall lifestyle. Good thoughts make life better is another of her fortune cookie fortunes, and using affirmations, from assorted sources, was a constant.
No matter what happens to me in the world, I am eternally safe in God.
You are going to travel somewhere far away.
At 86, Dianne had every intention of living longer, even getting well. But in the end a series of strokes ended that dream, and blessedly, she passed fairly quickly, with friends and family around her, without pain and in peace. She died on March 22, and on that day her Daily Word reading said Wholeness is the unshakable, eternal truth of me. And so we send her on her way, with faith in her wholeness and hope that she feels all of the love being sent with her by countless friends and family.
Dianne was preceded in death by her son Adam Craig Boons and her sister Julie Anne Green. She is survived by her son Chad Tyler Boons in NY, brother Howard Green and his wife Kohei in Mililani, sister Deborah Chandler in Guatemala, sister Cecily Yelek and her husband Dave in Texas, Hawaii nieces Maile Green and Elizabeth Green, who was named for Dianne Elizabeth, nieces and nephew Jeanette Dickson (NC), Katie Green (OK), and Nick Edson (PA), as well as more great and great-great nieces and nephews.
What’s your fondest memory of Dianne?
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