Orlie "Dan" McDaniel

1926 - 2006

Orlie "Dan" McDaniel, 79, passed Friday, Feb. 3, 2006, in Willow City.

Celebration of life: 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in Greenwood Chapel. Entombment: Greenwood Mausoleum. Visitation: 7 to 9 p.m. Monday at Greenwood Funeral Home.

Orlie D. "Dan" McDaniel was born July 28, 1926, in Fort Worth. He never knew a stranger and was always a friendly, talkative, warm, inquisitive, open and happy person.

Dan loved Dixieland and ragtime music, played very loudly. The music matched his happy spirit. He was born in the Roaring '20s and he grew up in Fort Worth, swimming across Eagle Mountain Lake and Lake Worth and working on his family's farm as a kid. He met Gwendlyn Green in 1945 and they married in 1953.

Dan worked for 40 years at General Portland Cement Company in Fort Worth, where he made many lifelong close friends who share his loss today. He loved these friends like brothers. He helped create the GPC Federal Credit Union and served as one of the driving forces there as a treasurer until the credit union closed when the plant closed in 1985. He was a lifelong union man and a lifelong Democrat. He was a member of the Stockyards Masonic Lodge 1244 for over 50 years.

Dan never met a tool he didn't like. His collection of electrified and manual tools, both useful and obsolete, defies description. He liked things to have a purpose and be useful. He also welded as a hobby, creating and building all kinds of things from nothing. He loved Model A's and was a member of the Cowtown Model A Club.

Deer hunting was a source of pleasure to him along with just being outside in nature, either in Texas or in Colorado. He was always awed by animals and beautiful landscapes.

Since 1989, Dan and Gwen lived half the year in Pitkin, Colo., where they made even more friends. He was good natured and good humored, even when laughing at himself.

Dan was a good man who led a good life. He had boundless and unconditional love for his wife, children, grandchildren, extended family and friends.

Dan was preceded in death by his mother, Clara; father, Orlie; sister, Maxine; brother, Van; stepsister, Thelma Lantrip; and stepbrothers, Roy and Bill Harlan.

Survivors: Loving wife of 52 years, Gwendlyn Green McDaniel; son, Charles McDaniel and wife, Diane of Allen; daughter, Liz McDaniel Watson and husband, Kirk of Austin; grandchildren, Alan McDaniel and Chris McDaniel and wife, Christy, all of Allen, Preston and Cooper Watson of Austin; sister, Sue Fournier and brother-in-law, Bud Fournier of Fort Worth; brother, Jere Harlan of Albuquerque, N.M.