Dr. Donna Elaine Hendrickson, known to friends and family as Elaine or Lani, died January 22, 2024 at her home in Beaminster, Dorset England near family.

Lani was born in Newton, Kansas July 28, 1937 to Maryalice Cook and Paul Detrick. Her parents divorced and Maryalice married Ken Brooks in 1940. The family moved to Coupeville six years later.

Lani worked as a soda jerk at the Coupeville Pharmacy on Front Street before graduating from high school as valedictorian of the Coupeville Class of 1955. She attended the College of Puget Sound (UPS) graduating in 1958 with a degree in occupational therapy. Lani met Alan Hendrickson in Tacoma. They married at the Coupeville Methodist Church on June 15, 1958 and moved to Chicago to continue their education and work.

Four years later the couple relocated to London to attend graduate school. Their son and daughter were born there. The Hendrickson’s combined experience with early computers and psychology to form a seminal, pioneering IT and market analysis company, Cybernetics Research Consultants. Lani was a managing director of this business and its successor, Pulse Train Technology.

She completed her Phd degree in 1972 at the University of London Institute Of Psychiatry while raising her children. Her scholarly career focused on neurological research into human memory and intelligence. She was proud a founder of an early British neurological association. While Lani maintained close ties to her American family, visiting often, she lived the remainder of her life in Europe.

The Hendrickson’s were avid skiers moving to Verbier, Switzerland in the 1990s and building a house there. Alan died there in 1999 and her daughter died in 1991. The couple shared a love of wine, research, cats, classical music, ballet and opera. Lani’s other passions included family, many friends, her community, travel and playing her saxophone. She was an active patron of charities and the Verbier and Beaminster Music Festivals including young musicians attending.

Lani moved to Beaminster almost 20 years ago to be near her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. She reveled in village life and was active in the Women’s Institute and University of the Third Age, established choral groups including one at a British men’s prison and the Beaminster Raucous Chorus, as well as monthly blues and jazz evenings and cinema events. Lani served as trustee of the village music festival and of a care home for the elderly, and was an advocate for local dementia care.

Wherever Lani lived she developed friendships and brought people together. She saw when friends and family needed help and responded. Lani was ambitious, inevitably optimistic, generous, independent, adventuresome, courageous, loving, creative, funny, curious, competitive and intelligent. She made the world brighter, bigger and better wherever she was. Her journey from small town soda jerk to British neurologist, mother and business woman and now home again was rich and wondrous while painful at times.

She will be buried Sunnyside Cemetery, Coupeville October 22nd near many that she loved.