Donald J. Mitchell

Donald Jerome Mitchell (May 8, 1923 – September 27, 2003) represented New York in the United States House of Representatives from 1973–1983.

Early life
Donald J. "Don" Mitchell, a native of Upstate New York's Mohawk Valley with ancestral family roots tracing back to the American Revolution, as well as Mohawk Indian blood on his father's side, was born in Ilion, New York, in 1923. He was the oldest child of Donald G. Mitchell and Winnifred Packard Mitchell of Herkimer, New York. He attended the Herkimer Public School System, graduating from Herkimer High School in 1940.

After returning home following military service during World War II, in 1945 he married Margaretta "Gretta" Wilson LeVee, the daughter of E. Allen LeVee and Margaret Tinker LeVee, of Little Falls, New York.

Married for over 57 years at the time of the Congressman's death in 2003, the Mitchells had three children—Gretchen, Cynthia, and Allen.

Military service
During World War II, Mitchell served as a carrier-based fighter pilot in the United States Navy from 1942 until 1945. Following the war, he completed a bachelor's degree in Optometry at Hobart College in 1949, and went on to earn a master's degree from Columbia University in 1950. In the early 1950s, he founded an optometry practice in Herkimer, New York.

An avid pilot in private life, Dr. Mitchell re-enlisted in the Navy in 1951, and served as a Naval Flight Instructor in Pensacola, Florida, from 1951–1953, during the Korean War.

Life after the military, professional career, civic service
After his second tour of duty with the Navy, Mitchell resumed his optometry practice in Herkimer, where he was elected to the City Council (1954–1957) and served as Mayor (1957–1960), and was active in numerous civic and charitable organizations. Among those were: the Boy Scouts of America, the American Civil Defense Association, the Central Association for the Blind, the Eastern New York Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, the Mohawk Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, the United Way, and the Herkimer County Historical Society. Additionally, he served as a member of the Herkimer Zoning Board of Appeals from 1963 until 1964, when he was elected to the New York State Assembly.

Political career
In 1964, Mitchell was elected to represent Herkimer County in the New York State Assembly (1965–1972) and served in the Republican leadership as the Assembly Majority Whip from 1969 until 1972.

In 1972, he was elected to the United States Congress where he represented what is now New York's 31st Congressional District. After being successfully re-elected to a second term by a wide margin in 1974, he then ran unopposed to for three more terms, serving in Congress a total of 10 years from January 3, 1973 until January 3, 1983.

While in the U.S. Congress, Mitchell served on the House Armed Services Committee, and was elected by his colleagues and served four years in the House Republican Leadership as Regional Whip for New England and the Mid-Atlantic States.

Among his other accomplishments as a Member of Congress, he was responsible for establishing Leatherstocking Country, a nine-county tourism district in Central New York state, and played a key role in establishing Fort Stanwix National Monument as a unit of the National Park System.

He and a coalition of other House members also started a campaign in the early 1970s to persuade the Defense Department to award more military contracts and employ more people in the Northeast, which was losing Defense funding and contracts to the South. And in 1974, Mitchell led another successful campaign to prevent the Air Force from cutting 1,500 jobs at the Rome Air Development Center at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, N.Y.

In 1982, at the behest of Broadway Producer Joe Papp, and with the encouragement of members of his family and others involved in a "Save the Theatres"  effort to preserve historic Broadway theatres in New York City, Mitchell introduced legislation in the Congress along with 13 co-sponsors to designate a "Broadway/Times Square Theatre District National Historic Site" in Mid-Town Manhattan. Mitchell's bill (97th Congress – H.R.6885) faced fierce opposition and extensive lobbying mounted against it by Mayor Ed Koch's administration and big-money Manhattan development interests. Although the measure was, consequently, never enacted – the overall effect of his legislative initiative and of the "Save the Theatres" effort generally, however, was to slow down the rapid destruction of the old Theater District. This allowed eventually for the preservation of at least some of the historic playhouses and helped ensure retention of some measure of the District's original flavor, atmosphere, charm and historic character for future generations of theatregoers and visitors to the City. And, as a result in large part to Mitchell and Papp's efforts, the Theater District remains one of New York City's primary and most popular tourist attractions and destinations.

Mitchell was also a founder of, and the first Chairman of the Northeast/Midwest Coalition in the U.S. House of Representatives, and was a founding member of the Congressional Tourism Caucus.

Always well liked by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Congressman Mitchell has been described by a Capitol Hill legislative aide as, "without doubt the nicest, most decent Member of Congress I ever knew or worked with – totally honest, of unquestionable integrity, always receptive to considering all points-of-view, with nothing beyond doing the very best possible for his Country at heart, and willing to work tirelessly for the betterment and continued welfare of his constituents in the Mohawk Valley in Upstate New York."

Life after Congress
In 1984, Mitchell retired from public service and returned to Herkimer, New York. There he resumed his optometry practice, he and his wife Gretta dividing their time between homes in the Mohawk Valley and in Cedar Key, Florida.

Following his retirement, Congressman Mitchell received a number of tributes of various sorts. Among these was the naming in his honor of the Veterans Administration hospital clinic at Griffiss Air Force Base near Rome, New York – which was formally designated by Act of Congress, signed into law by President Clinton, to be known as the "Donald J. Mitchell VA Outpatient Clinic". The facility provides primary care and other health care services for veterans in the greater Utica-Rome-Syracuse area in Central New York State.

Also, a highway bridge over West Canada Creek in the Mohawk Valley north of the Village of Herkimer was officially designated by Herkimer County as the "Donald J. Mitchell Bridge" in his honor.

Former Congressman Mitchell died on September 27, 2003, of complications associated with his lengthy battle late in life with Parkinson's disease. Upon his death, the Utica Observer-Dispatch newspaper noted: "If anyone can be heralded for having led an exemplary life, its former U.S. Congressman Donald J. Mitchell.... Mitchell managed to balance a vigorous commitment to community and country without ever forsaking family and friends – and he left a legacy of pride along a path that took him from the Mohawk Valley to the Nation's Capital and back again."

Following memorial services attended by, among many others, various former colleagues from the U.S. Congress and the New York State Assembly, his remains – escorted by both an active duty, and an American Legion veterans color guard, and borne by uniform personnel representing every branch of the U.S. Military Services – were interred with full military honors on a hillside at the Oak Hill Cemetery overlooking a tributary of the Mohawk River in his hometown of Herkimer.