Daniel Wenger Brunk

NEWPORT NEWS - Daniel Wenger Brunk was born on June 11, 1920, in Fentress, Va., and went peacefully home to be with his maker on Monday morning, Sept. 4, 2006. He moved to the Newport News area as a young man and spent the rest of his life as an active part of the Mennonite Colony in Denbigh. In 1941 he married Dora May Hertzler. As a young couple, they started a small business selling chickens at the farmer's market in Newport News, hauling fresh chickens from the Shenandoah Valley and plucking and butchering them on Friday night. Saturdays were spent at market, selling chickens while their first baby slept in a laundry basket at their feet. Dan learned the trade of plumbing by apprenticing to a local plumber, but in the early 1950's he struck out on his own and opened his own shop: Dan Brunk, Plumbing, Heating, and Air Conditioning. As the business grew, his green and white trucks could be spotted all over the community. He was respected as a direct, fair, and honest businessman. Eventually the business was bought by his nephew and renamed Brunk Mechanical. In the 1960's Dan, in collaboration with Nice Brother's Construction, helped develop sections of a rapidly growing city, putting his considerable energy, stamina, and skill into the creation of one of the earliest subdivisions in the area, Eastwood; and other projects such as Beechmont, Nicewood, Chelsea, and New Hampton Commons. Dan's mechanical skills were legendary. He could fix or make almost anything, and often did. Friends, family and neighbors all benefited from his talent, which he shared freely and generously, dropping everything to fix someone's furnace or repair someone else's broken door lock. He loved a challenge and loved creating a solution for a problem. When Dora, as she aged, grew too short for the pews at church, Dan built a little footstool that could be kept beneath her customary seat and pulled out on Sunday morning. He also gave generously and tirelessly of his time and money to the many organizations he supported, such as Wycliffe Bible Translators, Mennonite Central Committee, and Tech Serve, to name a few. As an active volunteer in Tech Serve, he helped develop water purification systems and plumbing systems for hospitals, schools and orphanages in India and South America. An adventurer with a great curiosity for the unknown, Dan loved to travel. Besides his trips for Tech Serve and his many trips with Dora, he also sailed the Caribbean, motorcycled in the Andes, and as recently as the fall of 2005, at the age of 85, explored Africa with his son Ken. Dan was a great storyteller and had a mischievous sense of humor. As an old man, he was distinctive, sporting a thick beard and mustache and always wearing a Greek fisherman's hat. He whistled as he worked and carried a harmonica with him at all times. As his body began to fail him, more and more he gravitated toward the old hymns about heaven. As his death neared, he asked to be buried in a simple pine box with these words on top: 'Gone Home.' He is survived by his wife, Dora, with whom he celebrated 64 years of marriage last November 30; and five children, Shirley Coberly of Syringa, Va., (husband Joe), Ronald Brunk of Charlottesville, Va., (wife Karen), Kathryn Stoltzfus of Leola, Pa., (husband Dale), Kenneth Brunk of Harrisonburg, Va., (wife Gail), and Juanita Brunk of Brooklyn, N.Y. He is also survived by one brother, Sam Brunk of Newport News; one sister, Edith Molly Barnes of Telford, Pa.; nine grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Viewing will be held at Warwick River Mennonite Church on Saturday, Sept. 9, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., followed by a memorial service in the sanctuary at 1 p.m., with burial following in the church cemetery. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Habitat for Humanity, 809 Main Street, Newport News, VA 23601. Arrangements by W. J. Smith & Son Funeral Home.