Daniel Robert Siewert Jr.

If you drove through the Woodland neighborhood during the last decade or so, there’s a good chance you saw a man wearing an orange hat and walking a black Labrador retriever. That was our dad doing what he did most days: helping out.

On Wednesday, January 8, 2020, Daniel Robert Siewert, Jr was reunited in heaven with his wife, Carol Suzanne nee Williams. We are all sure that she had a list of ways for him to “help out” when he arrived. And we are also sure he is thrilled to get started.

Dad was born August 30, 1930 in Villa Park, Illinois, near Chicago, to Alice (Ethel Alize) nee Wendland and Daniel Robert Siewert, Senior. Born during the Depression Years, Dad and his siblings (elder sister Bert (Roberta) and younger brother Herb (Herbert)) grew up in a different time from today. For family fishing trips to Northern Wisconsin, the Siewert family would ride the train, disembarking at a pre-named mile marker (no such thing as a train station in that neck of the woods!). They would be reunited with their steamer trunks full of gear at some backwoods someplace, having shipped them ahead of the trip. It was during these trips that dad became an accomplished fly fisherman; a skill he would carry with him for years to come. As someone who tied countless fishing flies, a favorite saying of his was, “Snip, snip, nymph”… (a nymph being what you were left with after an unsuccessful snip, for even a nymph had value). A phrase we would hear hundreds of times growing up: even if we were unsuccessful in our efforts, there was a lesson in the attempt. He and his family would fish, cook over campfires, and be off the grid before there really was a grid. He told stories of digging Victory Gardens, having his pet beagle put down because it ate a neighbor’s eggs from the chicken coop, and lying flat on the tracks when a train approached because he was stuck on the middle of the bridge.

While in high school at York High, Dad was nicknamed “Crazy Legs” for his ability to dodge the defense on the football field (while wearing, yes, a leather helmet). Our dad attended the University of Illinois, graduating in 1951 with degrees in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. Following a two-year stint in the U.S. Army as an MP at Fort Sam Houston (where he earned awards as a marksman because his heart rate was low and his feet were big), he launched a 50+ year career with General Electric. Dad used his middle-child negotiating talents as a Sales Engineer; designing and selling motors for the pumps many of us use today. Our family still talks about two particularly memorable moments from his career. First, after an especially long string of business trips and late nights at the office, mom and the neighbors presented Dad with the “Friggin’ Service Award.” It was a thing of beauty: letters and words cut from a magazine, affixed to a cardboard disc covered with aluminum foil, all hung from a piece of yarn. Dad could not have been more happy or more proud. (Adult beverages may have been involved). The second moment occurred while Dad was giving clients a tour of a factory where their motors were being built. During the tour, the group passed through a gate in the assembly line. The conveyor was meant to stop when the gate was lifted, but it didn’t, and a motor fell from the line directly onto Dad’s foot. In a testament to how much he loved GE, Dad didn’t interrupt the tour… he finished, said his goodbyes, then finally drove himself to the ER where they confirmed he had lost the top third of his big toe. That same night, he drove three hours home to Ohio, his only regret that he had probably ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes.

Our parents met in Fort Wayne, Indiana while out for drinks with different friend groups. They must have been good match, because four months later they were married. They would spend the next 61 years together. Our parents raised us with large doses of love, frequent fishing trips, rock and water vacations in points north (no Florida beaches for us!), flooded backyards for winter ice skating, lots of Sunday rides in the country, annual trips to cut down the perfect Christmas tree, and a long succession of cats. One memorable cat climbed the tallest tree in our yard during a rainstorm. Mom wanted Dad to help the cat down, but he insisted it could find its way down if it found its way up. Cut to midnight, Dad was on an extension ladder rescuing said cat. Did we mention he was a dog person?

Many of you might have met our dad at “The Y” where he played basketball and racquetball. We’re pretty sure he had THE most centrally located locker, because he was forever saying, “That guy has/had a locker by me at the Y.” How could all those lockers be by his?! If not at the Y, there is a chance you knew him from a campout during Mike’s Boy Scout years, during one of the many events he attended for his grandsons, from the Starbuck’s at Kroger (where he would wait while Mom shopped), or back in the good ol’ days when he tagged along for Mom’s Bridge Club shenanigans. He lived here for 50 years, so we know he touched a lot of lives… And we also know that to know him, was to love him.

During his last illness, he said, “You don’t know unless you try,” and he certainly gave it a good try. So goodbye, Dad! We hope the fish are biting and you can hear the wind in the pines. P.S. We made sure to include a new orange hat for the journey.

Survived by son Michael Siewert (Bexley, OH), daughter Sarah (Patrick) Bennett (Mansfield), grandsons James Rieder-Siewert (Columbus), Jack and Will Bennett (Mansfield).

Celebration of Life: January 25, 2020

2:30 pm-4:30 pm

Life Celebration Reception Center

129 South Main Street, Mansfield, OH 44902

*If you're feeling it, wear something orange in honor of Dad

Memorial Contributions can be made to

Mansfield Area YMCA Arbor Day Foundation

750 Scholl Road

Mansfield, OH. 44902

OR mail to

Arbor Day Foundation

211 North 12th Street

Lincoln, NE 68508