A Tribute to a Hero
Original Post on September 10, 2025 Last Update on September 17, 2025
I plan to update this post from time to time as things come to mind. Feel free to check back now and again to see what's been added.
I had a rather long pause in my posts last month. It's not that I wasn't thinking about what I might say, but that I'm finding it a little hard to sort the topics flowing through my mind into reasonable categories or snippets. You see, my father passed away and there are so many emotions, memories, and doctrines of the gospel that intertwine through such an event that it is challenging to sort through them all.
My Dad was my hero in so many ways. Some talk about heroes as idols, but they are not. Idols are unduly worshipped; heroes are respected and honored. We may want to become more like our heroes because they have attributes that we deeply admire and want to emulate, but heroes are still understood to be human. They have flaws and weaknesses, but they work to address them or overcome them. They may have unknown pain, embarrassment, and challenges yet they strive to protect those they care about -- not to keep from greater embarrassment but to try to keep the same or worse from others. They tough out hard times with tenacity and courage. They show gentleness through great strength, not through timidity. They have enough confidence and self-respect that they can show humbleness, patience and kindness toward those weaker or in a lower position than themselves. Dad was my hero.
His obituary is repeated at the end of the post, but as with any such thing, it can only touch on a highlight or two, so let me share a few things.
I met my dad when I was very young and really don't remember much about those early years. A couple of my earliest memories of him are from our time in Amarillo, Texas. I was three or four years old at the time. Once, I walked with my dad down the street and he was talking to a neighbor. Being somewhat bored, I decided that it would be a great idea to pick up a rock and throw it onto the neighbor's roof. It was a perfect shot. It landed on the roof, rolled down it, bounced off the gutters and rolled right back to stop at my feet. That was so cool that I had to do it again. And it was a perfect shot - right through their front window. I was completely mortified so I ran home as fast as I could and hid under my bed. Soon, my dad came in, found me and we had a talk. He understood how badly I felt - and I'm sure he had to pay for the window. At another time, my cousins from Lubbock, Texas were visiting with their dad, my uncle Gary. The neighborhood was being terrorized by a skunk. My cousins, sister and I stayed indoors sitting as high off the ground as we could on the back of the sofa - which in our young minds made perfect sense - while Dad, my uncle and other men from the neighborhood bravely faced the savage beast and went out to capture the skunk. What a heroic deed by them all!
Of course, as I grew older, I came to see my dad differently. Education was important to him. He started out at Texas Tech but soon joined the Naval reserve (a surprising thing, I guess, for someone from the Texas Panhandle) and then enlisted in the Navy. He told me that he had done some things with amateur radio back in the day, which may have influenced the Navy's decision to send him for communications training. Later, he studied Russian which he would use from time to time for fun as I was growing up. He served in Naval Intelligence, which may be an oxymoron to some folks, but I prefer to think of them based on the motto emblazoned on a patch I bought him many years later in Norfolk, Virginia: "In God We Trust. All Others We Monitor." After the Navy, Dad went to Columbia on the GI Bill and got a degree in accounting. Then years later, he got an MBA from West Texas State. Even after that, I remember him going to classes for his real estate license.
In the Navy from 1957 to 1960, Dad spent much of his service in Turkey, monitoring the Soviet Union and their activities. Many years later, he and I were driving down the road when he looked at his watch and said essentially "OK, the time has passed. I'm free to share this. Let me tell you a story ..." He then related an experience listening in on a Soviet missile test and chuckling at the shock expressed by the Soviets that it worked correctly. It was probably 30 years after that when he told me about another time when he was assigned to the Franklin D Roosevelt aircraft carrier when Khrushchev was doing some saber-rattling, and the US was positioning in case they needed to respond. But he really didn't ever talk all that much about details, which is probably best. His last assignment was with the NSA at Naval Security Group Activity as a cryptographer.
Dad met my mother when on leave from his post in Turkey. For that and up until we moved to the Denver metro area -- where I grew up from 5 years old until after my sophomore year in college -- I'll let Dad tell the story (as dictated several years ago):
I was stationed in Turkey, and a friend of mine and I were going to see the World’s Fair in Brussels in 1958, and as long as we were going to the World’s Fair, we decided that we should stop and see a number of other sites. So, I went to the librarian on the base in Turkey, and asked her for some help, and she set me up with a tour of Rome and made reservations for us in Brussels and Amsterdam and Frankfurt. So I took off first and my friend was going to meet me in Zürich, Switzerland after I had done my tour of Italy. So, I went from Istanbul, Turkey to Rome, Italy and stayed in Rome for three days at a small pensione and got to see St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s and all the sites around Rome.
On the day that I was scheduled to leave Rome, I was on a tour bus that was going to Venice, because I was going to see Venice and then I would come back to Rome and fly to Zürich, which was just the way the travel transportation worked out. So, I’m sitting in the bus station waiting for my tour and I saw this tall, good-looking, blonde-haired woman with her hair pulled back in a bun, wearing glasses; and I said, “I hope she’s on my bus!” And so they announced my bus for the tour to go to, the first stop was in Florence, Italy and the next day going on to Venice – so they announced my bus tour, and the woman was walking around, and I went to my bus and she went off to another bus, so I said “Well, darn! I didn’t get to meet her.” So, I came on the bus, sat down in my seat, which was an aisle seat, and I put everything away and looked up at the front, and here was this blonde woman talking to the hostess. The hostess pointed toward the back – toward me – and, of course, my heart did a flip-flop. Then the hostess came back and stopped at the row that I was in and there were two seats on the bus on either side of the aisle, and she said “Would you excuse us, please? This young lady has the seat next to the window.” And as she put her bag away, I noticed on there that is said “Lufthansa Airline,” so I thought “Boy, she is as German as she looks and probably doesn’t speak English.” So, as she walked past me to sit down, I said “Do you speak English?” And she said “Sure. I’m from New York City.” So, we carried on a conversation.
As we were talking about various things on the way up to Florence, we stopped to see a number of sites. The first site that made an impression on me, that I remember the most, was in Assisi, Italy. Assisi is where the chapel of St. Francis of Assisi is located. There were a number of people in the group, and we got off the bus and there were some soldiers dancing with some songs, and we went inside for a tour. As we went inside for the tour, we walked around for a little bit and I was looking at some pictures on the wall, and I looked around and the tour had gone – I wasn’t listening to the guide – and they had gone off in the church somewhere. So, I said “Oh, well. That’s just the way it works. Maybe I’ll see her back on the bus.” About two minutes later, I heard the clomp, clomp, clomp of heels – low heels – coming toward me, and it was Maryanna. I said, “What are you doing here?” and she said “I don’t know. I was walking in the church in the tour, and I looked around and you weren’t there. And a voice told me ‘Go back and get him.” So, she came back and got me. And that gave me goosebumps.
So, anyway, we finished the tour and stopped and had lunch. At lunch we were at an outdoor, covered patio type area where the whole tour had lunch, and she sat across from me and I was able to take pictures of her with my camera. She was thinking that I was taking pictures of all the scenery and everything, but I did manage to get a picture or two with her in it – very fleeting. But that’s the way the mind works.
So anyway, when the tour was finally over, we went out to the bus to get ready to go to Florence that night, where I was spending the night and she was going to stay a couple of days. We stopped outside the bus and there was a vendor there selling slices of watermelon. She took a bite of watermelon, and the juice ran down her chin and I said, “I am going to marry this woman.”
We got on the bus and went to Florence, and I said, “As long as I’m in Florence tonight and you’re in Florence tonight, would you like to go out and have supper?” And she said “Yes.” Well, I had no money or very little money, and she was staying at a hotel half-way across town from where I was, but I went into my hotel and checked in and I had a meal with my hotel, so I ate so I wouldn’t have to spend any money for my meal when we went out that evening. So, I asked the people in the lobby of the hotel how to get to the Mediterranean Hotel where she was staying. They told me to take this bus out in front, Bus number so-and-so, and get off at what-ever the directions were. So I got on the bus, and the bus driver asked me for the money, and I had no idea what he was asking so I held out my hand and he took the money from me. Then I went to the back of the bus and the people there asked me where I was going, and I told them, and when I got to the area where I should get off, they told me where I should get off – extremely courteous people.
Of course, Florence is a city of all kinds of art – statues and everything – and what I didn’t realize at the time was that Maryanna was staying at – I think it was the Metropolitan Hotel or the Metropol Hotel or something like that – that she was at the base of the mountain, or hill if you would, that goes up to where you overlook Florence and has the statue of Michelangelo’s David at the top of it. So, I had them ring her room and she came down. I asked them where would be a good place to eat and they recommended the Luna Verde restaurant, which was half-way up this hill, (which means the Green Moon). So, we took a cab up to the Green Moon for her to have supper, and it was cold, terrible, cold spaghetti. She had an orange soda and spaghetti. So, when we finished, she was almost sick because the food was so bad. We went for a walk and walked up to the top of the hill and saw Michelangelo’s David bathed in the light and overlooking the city of Florence with all of the lights. And we stood there for a little while and then we started walking and I said “Well, I have to take my bus in the morning for the rest of my tour and so I’d better head back because I have to get back to my hotel.” So, we started walking down the path, the road, which also had sidewalks periodically as we went down this hill through the park. We got about three-quarters of the way down the hill and it started raining – light rain, it was drizzling – so, I took my coat, jacket that I had on – I had on a suit and tie, actually a sport coat and tie – and I held it up to keep her from getting wet, and she turned to me and we kissed. And I decided, maybe I should see her one more time. So, I took her over to the hotel, and we made arrangements for where I was going to meet her in Venice.
So, I went back to my hotel and took the bus the next day and took my tour to Venice, and I got there and was staying in a small pensione in Venice. Maryanna was coming the day after that and was going to stay at the Isle of Lido, which was an island away from downtown Venice out into the Adriatic Sea. I made arrangements, I went out there that day to see what it was like and scope the land, so I would know what I was doing and then I did some sightseeing. The next day I went out to pick her up in the evening, it was about 6:00 in the evening when I went to pick her up. So, I picked her up and we came back – it was still somewhat light, it was kind of twilight – and we stopped in St. Mark’s Square, that’s where the boat stopped, the taxi-ferry stopped. Then we went to, stepped out in St. Mark’s Square, and St. Mark’s Square had sidewalk cafés with orchestras or little groups playing their violins, etc. as they walked around. There was a choir on one of the stands that were singing as we went in – I mean, it was exquisite. I have no idea what they were singing. I do know that we walked around listening to it and we sat down at one of the sidewalk cafés and we had raspberry ice – this is the Italian ice – and it was delicious.
We walked out of St. Mark’s Square and by that time it was dark. We walked a block off of Venice – the main canal, Grand Canal of Venice – and there was a side canal where you could rent or hire a gondola. So, I hired the gondola, and the guy took us out into some of the canals and into the Grand Canal and the large gondolas passing us with people singing and serenading, and here was me and Maryanna in our little gondola being guided down the Grand Canal of Venice. I reached over to kiss her and the gondolier said “No, you can’t do that. The Italians don’t like public displays of that,” so he went around to a smaller canal so I could kiss her.
Anyway, we got out of the canal, I mean the gondola, after it was over, and we were there again at St. Mark’s Square, and we took a walk down past Doge’s Palace and there was a hotel there call Hotel Danieli. We stopped right on the Grand Canal, and I turned to her and asked “When I come back to the States, will you marry me?” She said, “Yes, I will.”
So that is how I met Maryanna, so I took her back to her hotel, left her and then the next day I left for Brussels and then to Amsterdam and then Frankfurt and back to Turkey.
Well, we corresponded for almost a year before I was sent to an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. When the aircraft tour of duty was over in the Mediterranean, instead of going back to Turkey, I asked my commander if I could just ride the ship back to the United States, since my tour of duty was up. I still had about four or five months left in on my enlistment and he made arrangements for me to go back on the carrier. So, I wrote Maryanna and told her that I would be coming into Jacksonville, Florida. So, she said that she was going to come down and meet me there. Well, the closer we got to Florida, and I had been gone overseas for two years, I decided that the smart thing for me to do was to go home and see my folks in Lubbock. So just before the ship arrived, we had telephone communications that we could use. I called Maryanna and told her not to come to Florida because I was going to go to Lubbock first, and then I would come up to New York. Well, she got so irritated that she jumped in her car drove north to Saugerties and had an accident on her way up there because she was so mad.
Anyway, I didn’t know about that until later. Anyway, I went to Lubbock and stayed in Lubbock for a couple of weeks, I had thirty days leave, and then I left. I bought a car and drove to New York. I met Maryanna and I called and told her that I was coming in and she told me how to find her, and I found the location. As I pulled up in front of the apartment building, Opa [Maryanna's father and mother are known to the grandkids as Opa and Oma] was standing out front to meet me. And then when Opa came down and met me, I didn’t know it was him, then Maryanna came out of the building, and she came across the street and gave me a kiss. Opa then came over and shook my hand. That was the start of a good relationship.
This was all happening in 1958. I met her early in 1958 and then I had to finish the tour of duty until September with the aircraft carrier, and then I was on leave in October. And it was October of ’58 that I met Opa the first time. I stayed there a couple of days and met a lot of people, then reported to my duty station in Washington, DC. And all during the months of October, November and December, I was waiting to be discharged in January or February. It was technically February, but I thought I’d be discharged in January. I would come back and forth to New York City almost every weekend. The guys on the base would pool their money and help pay for the cost of gasoline and tolls, and I had the car, so they’d pay the expenses, and I’d drive the car, and we’d all go off.
Well in November, she came down to a meeting that we had down in Washington some sort of a Thanksgiving picnic, or it wasn’t a picnic, it was a banquet or something that she came down for, and it was at that time that I gave her her engagement ring. And the engagement ring was very expensive. I think it cost like $75. I got it from the PX, but she didn’t seem to mind.
Anyway, that was the time that I’d first seen her with an asthma attack. She had an asthma attack, and we had to put her in St. John’s … in one of the hospitals in Baltimore … Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. She was there over night while they gave her some medication for an asthma attack. And then after that, she told me … I was aware that she had asthma, but I was never aware of what problems it created until I saw that. Then she told me that if I wanted to change my mind, that she would understand and I thought “Why would I want to change my mind?”
She came back down again about in January; she’d come down on the train. We bought our furniture at a furniture store, which by the way, I still have. It’s bedroom furniture, and the kitchen furniture we don’t have any more because it was one of those cheap tables. And since the Navy would transfer my goods, we bought it there and then had them shipped to New York. And then in February, on February the 6th we got married. 1960. And we got married, and we got married in, I think it was St. Francis of Assisi in Bronx, New York. I’m almost certain that’s where it was.
One of the biggest problems that we had, we had to go to meetings with the priest, so I went to the meeting with the priest, and I had to sign a piece of paper that since I wasn’t Catholic that if we had any children, the children would be raised Catholic. And I told Maryanna after we were out of there, I said “I have a real problem. If anything were ever to happen to you, I don’t know anything about the Catholic Church, and I couldn’t do that. But” I said, “I’ll sign anything for us to be able to get married.” Well, she didn’t say anything, but I knew it probably disturbed her somewhat.
Anyway, we got married in February and then we had a rehearsal party and a reception and the wedding, etc. I don’t remember what the restaurant is (where the reception was held). I probably would remember it if I sat down and gave it a lot of thought, but I don’t remember what the restaurant’s name was. Hermann probably remembers.
Then Maryanna and I went to the Poconos for our honeymoon. We got to the Poconos late that night, about 10:30 that night. And we registered, and of course the whole Poconos area was made up of honeymooners. There was a separate little cabin that we had, and they would serve dinner in one big main hall, with all the couples and everything were over there. It was really kind of neat. So, we went over to the cabin and checked in to the cabin and got everything set up and there was no fire in the fireplace. So, I started building a fire in the fireplace, and it wouldn’t light. Finally, I got it lit, and I kept fooling around with it, and Maryanna said to me “If the fire goes out, I’m going to kill you.” I said “OK!” I got the message!
So, anyway, we spent our honeymoon there for, I think it was about three days. We drove around a lot and saw a lot of things in the Poconos, and it was really a neat time with the snow on the ground and everything.
We went back to New York City after that, and she was working at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and my job ... I didn’t have a job at the time, but I got one about a week later … since I had been a teletype operator in the Navy, I got a job at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. I worked in what they called the golds transfer room. There were some documents where they kept track of all the transfers between banks, and I did the teletype and all the messages sending these transfers back and forth. Of course, that no longer works that way. It’s all done by computer now. But I worked there, and Maryanna had her job at Metropolitan Life.
Then in June of that year, that summer, I took some German classes in the evening at Columbia University – and, of course, worked during the day. The reason I took the German classes was because I could only understand about half of what Oma and Opa were saying because they’d speak half English and half German. So, I thought this would be a smart thing, at least I’d learn to understand part of it, and it helped out a lot. When the summer was over, Maryanna and I talked about it and we decided the best thing would be for me to go full-time and finish school.
So, Maryanna had her job at Metropolitan Life where she was an actuary – I think they called it an actuary trainee. There were a number of tests that were involved in the actuarial certification. She had completed four at that point in time and she was working on 5A and 5B. And Maryanna was the type of individual that could sit down and start studying her math books – math of all things – TV blaring, anything else going on (we didn’t have TV in our apartment) music or anything else, she could study and never hear a word anybody else was saying. And, of course, I can’t do it that way. But she passed the test. Every test she ever took she passed.
Then in December of that year, when we had our first trip to Lubbock so that she could meet my folks, I don’t really remember how we went. I think we drove there… as a matter of fact, I know we drove that year. We drove in her Plymouth. We drove down through Washington and through Tennessee because the storms were up north. She had been sick with an asthma attack and had been trying to recuperate, and so we just took the time and went down to Texas. Then we turned around and came back and she was well enough to go back to work. And then that summer…this was in 1961 …we did a number of things that were exciting during the times that I could get breaks from school. We went to some of the plays in Sharon, Connecticut and we stayed with some friends of hers in Poughkeepsie, New York, and just generally enjoyed seeing what we could do. Since I was going to Columbia, I got free tickets to go to plays and concerts and things, and museums, which was one of the best things about going to college in New York City.
Maryanna had her job, then we found out later in the year that she was pregnant, so in the fall I started to work for the New York Stock Exchange. The New York Stock Exchange department of member firms, and all we did was write letters and keep track of their individual borrowings that they had to report to the Federal Government. And I worked there in the fall and then in the springtime was close to graduation. And had my first job interview – I had three job interviews, one was with General Electric, one was with the New York Telephone, and one was with the National Security Agency. Well, the job I was most interested in was the one with the National Security Agency because that was exactly what I had been doing in the Navy. And not only that, my starting position would have been a GS9 and a GS9 even at that time was extremely high for a starting position. So, I went to Washington and had an interview, and a lie detector test and all these things, and came back and they offered me …said they were going to offer me a position as a computer programmer. And I said, “What is a computer programmer?” So, they explained to me a little bit about what it was. I said “Well, that sounds really interesting.”
So anyway, I went back up to New York and then I had a job offer from General Electric. I really didn’t want the job with New York Telephone because the telephone company job was right there in New York City, and I didn’t want to stay in New York City. So General Electric had the only firm job offer in front of me, so I took it and we moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts and I started to work there in June of 1962. And Theresa was born in April, so we moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Opa rented a trailer with the car we had, and we moved up there, and he helped us move. And then we lived there from 1962 and 1963, when John was born.
Maryanna took part in a lot of the church activities at the Catholic Church in Dalton, Massachusetts. She did some teaching and things like this. We had a little garden, we did tomatoes – basically they were cherry tomatoes that we were growing – and we had cherry tomatoes running out our ears. But we had peaches, and all these things that Oma had or would buy bushels of and come over and can.
She liked to cook. She was a really good cook. She had one meal that she cooked in Massachusetts, I haven’t even had it since then. It was a breast of veal that I remember you’d but bacon strips over it to bake it and then you’d rub garlic cloves all over it. And it was absolutely delicious! But I’ve never found breast of veal, except up there. I guess I haven’t looked in the right place.
Then around in February of 1964 I won an award in the business training class at General Electric, and part of the award was going to take us to the plant in Hickory, North Carolina. You know, actually, take out to dinner, give us big cigars, tell us how great we were, these kinds of things as a reward. I was number three in the company, in the business training course, in the accounting courses. And so, we went down there and Maryanna went to New York City and while she was there, of course, she went around seeing all of her friends. So, I came back, this was in February – late February – and we went back to Pittsfield, and she was coming down with a cold. She came down with a cold from the New York trip and that’s when she had an asthma attack and her bronchial tubes were all blocked up and everything. She went in the hospital on a Saturday, and on the following Tuesday – I’m not sure if it was on a Monday or Tuesday – the following week she died. That was March the 17th, 1964.
Oma and Opa stayed with me for a while. Opa had to go back to work and Oma stayed there for about two months while I was deciding what I wanted to do. Then I decided to move back to Texas and that’s when we moved back there. Gary came up and picked up Theresa and John and flew back with them and then I drove the car with the goodies and had a moving van bring the rest of the things to Texas in 1964. We got down there in May or early June, I think it was in May.
OK, Theresa [my sister] asked how you got your names. When she [Maryanna] found out she was pregnant with Theresa, she said “If it’s a girl, I’m going to name her Theresa.” I said “OK. Why Theresa?” and she said “I just love the name Theresa. It’s a beautiful name. It means ‘Little Flower of Jesus’” and she said “That’s what I want to name it if it’s a girl. If it’s a boy, I want to name it Paul Karl. Paul because when I was in Rome, I promised at St. Paul’s Cathedral that I would name my fist son, Paul.” And she said, “I want to name it Karl after my grandfather in Germany.” So, I said “Fine, I don’t have a problem with that.” So, when Theresa was born, of course Theresa Diane. And I really don’t know where the name Diane came from. I think she just liked Diane. But anyway, Theresa was the name that she had picked out.
When John was born, we called my mother and dad in Texas and said, “You have a grandson.” And my dad said, “What are you going to name him?” And we said “Paul Karl.” He said “Well, I was hoping somebody would name a son after me.” And I said “Uh…Aubrey?!” because that’s my father’s middle name, was John Aubrey. He said “No! John.” And I said “OK” and so I said something to Maryanna and Maryanna said “Fine! His name is John Paul Karl Daniel!”, so that’s how John got his four first names.
Then when I went to Lubbock, I was looking around for a job. This was in 1964. I had worked for General Electric, and I offered my resignation when I moved to Texas, but they wouldn't accept it. They said they would put me on a leave of absence. So, when I was in Lubbock I heard about a job opening through a placement agency and I went over and talked to them, and she said it was with General Electric and I said “Gee, I already work for General Electric.” And she said “Well, you may have to pay the fee.” So, I said “OK, that’s fine.” So, I went over and talked to the General Electric people and the guy … to make a long story short, they eventually wound up hiring me because my boss in Massachusetts had told them that they should. And when I walked in there, and started to work there, Barbara worked in a different department in General Electric on another floor. And I had been there about a day, and she had walked in and I said “Hmm, that’s a nice-looking young lady.” But here I was with two children, and I didn’t know if anyone would want to date me or not. So, we talked back and forth for a little bit and through the month of June I got up the nerve to ask her and I asked her to go out to dinner with me. Little did I know at the time …when I took her out to dinner, I ordered lobster and this was her first lobster, and so that ruined it for the rest of my life.
But anyway, then we went to a movie a couple of times, and Barbara would end up babysitting for me while I would go work in the evening collecting bills for General Electric credit. Then in October, on October the 9th 1964 we got married. But before we got married, I was really concerned because Maryanna had died in March, and I was concerned about hurting anybody’s feelings. And so, I went to – a lady lived behind us who was the mother of one of my aunts by marriage and her name was Mrs. Hacker. She was 90-some-odd years old. She was bed-ridden because she had fallen and broken her hips a few times, and I went over to visit with her. And I said, “Mrs. Hacker as long as I’m visiting with you, I’d like to ask you a question.” She said, “What is it honey?” I said, “You know, my first wife died?” She said, “Yes.” And I said “I have met this girl, that I really would like to marry, but I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. What do you think I should do?” And she said “When it comes to things like this, you have to do what you think is right for you. You shouldn’t worry about other people’s feelings.” And she said “Besides, I have a feeling that you’ll be surprised.” So, I said “OK, that’s what I’m going to do.” So, I asked Barbara to marry me, then I called Oma and Opa and I said, “I’m getting married” and I was really concerned about their feelings. And Oma said “Oh, good! I won’t have to worry about the kids anymore.” So that was the surprise.
Then, let’s see, we lived in Lubbock for a little while, for that year and then the next July we moved to Amarillo.
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And before Barbara and I got married, the kids were kept a lot by Mema [Don's mother and father are known to the grandkids as Mema and Bepa] and they lived over at Morten at the time, and she would keep them and I would go over on the weekends. And that didn’t last very long, because I didn’t like the idea of the kids being there and me being over in Lubbock. So, I brought them back and put them in a little daycare center, which was hard to get because John was so young. But, of course, the lady took over and felt like John was her little boy ‘cause he was the youngest one in the daycare. Theresa didn’t care. She had all these other friends to play with, but John was just a baby.
We lived in Lubbock, I think it was until July of ’65 and we moved to Amarillo, Texas and lived in Amarillo until 1968 then moved to Denver.
Obituary of Billy Don Daniel (1936 - 2025)
Billy Don Daniel, 88, of Parker, Colorado, was called home to Jesus on August 8, after a short battle with cancer. His passing was painless and peaceful, and he was surrounded by his family in the home he built.
Don was born on November 13, 1936, in Hereford, Texas, to Melissa Josephine Pope and John Aubrey Daniel. He had an older brother, Jerrold, and a younger brother, Gary. He graduated from Lubbock High School in 1955, where he played football and sang in the choir (with Buddy Holly!).Don attended Texas Tech University for one year, joined the Naval Reserve, and then enlisted in the United States Navy. He went to San Diego for communication training and upon completion was shipped to Washington, DC, to study Russian.He was then stationed at a U.S. Air Force base which had a Navy detachment assigned to it near a small town in Turkey on the Bay of Ismet. He served on active duty from March 1957 to February 1960. Don later obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from Columbia University in June 1962. He obtained a Master of Business Administration from West Texas State University in May 1968.While serving in the Navy and visiting Italy, Don met his first wife, Maryanna (Mia) Stein, while she was there on a sightseeing trip before visiting her grandparents in Germany. They were married on February 6, 1960, in New York City and had two children together: Theresa Diane in 1962 and John Paul Karl in 1963.A few months following Maryanna's untimely passing on March 17, 1964, Don's company paid for him to transfer to Lubbock, so he returned to his hometown where his parents could help him with Theresa and John. It was there he met his second wife, Barbara Elizabeth Applegate, who worked at the same company. They were married on October 9, 1964. Don and Barb moved to Colorado in October 1968 and their son William Frederick was born in 1970. Don and Barb celebrated 60 years together in 2024.Don was a charismatic, outgoing man and never met a stranger. He worked many years in sales and was proud to be the person who sold the first mainframe computer to Denver Public Schools. He brought home one of the first Commodore PET computers sold in the state of Colorado to share his love of technology with his son John.Don also ran a successful real estate company for several years with his good friend Tom Rouen, who died in March 2011 nearly breaking Don's heart. Don and Barb loved Morgan horses and raised them in the 70s and 80s, showing around Colorado and the Morgan Grand Nationals with their children Theresa and Bill. Most of all, Don loved Jesus and was deeply involved in the ministries at his church. He let God's light shine from him everywhere he went.Don is dearly missed by his large family, including his daughter Theresa and her husband David, son John and his wife Stephanie, son Bill and his wife Nancy, grandchildren Laura, Andrea, Bethany, Mary, David, Benjamin, Makenna, Chloe, Landon, and great-grandchildren Jace, Aubriana, Carter, Matthew, Lexi, and Rylee. He also leaves behind many nieces, nephews, cousins, and his sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law who all treasured his presence in their lives. He is preceded in death by his mother Melissa Josephine, his father John, his brothers Jerrold and Gary, and his first wife Maryanna.
