David Wallace Gillette

On Sunday, December 7th, 2025, David Wallace Gillette passed away peacefully at the age of 82. He had been slowly slipping away into dementia for several years and was ready to go after living a full, beautiful, and impactful life.

David was born on April 14th, 1943 to Wallace and Elsie Gillette in San Diego and would be the oldest of nine children who were raised primarily in Woodburn, Oregon. As a young boy at home with his mother, he learned to read before he even started school and excelled academically. He loved learning so much that he would end up spending his entire life sharing this passion with others. After graduating from Woodburn High School in 1960, he left home to attend Wheaton College in Illinois to major in physics. He assumed he would work in a science-related career after college but changed his mind when he had an opportunity to volunteer in an inner-city school with the Peace Corps and realized he had a natural gift for teaching.

David headed back home to Oregon to attend the Oregon College of Education, now called Western Oregon University, and earned his Master’s Degree in Education. His first teaching job was as a science teacher at Salem Academy. After that, he had the opportunity to drive a computer truck to local high schools and introduce students to the earliest version of the computer, teaching them about how it worked and what it could do.

Around this same time, he was attending a young adult group at Salem First Baptist Church where he met and fell in love with Sherrie Farries. They got married in 1969 at Trinity Covenant Church in Salem. Right after getting married, David and Sherrie lived on the El Toro Marine Base in California where they welcomed their first child, Laura.

After two years of military service, they moved back to Salem, OR where David started teaching at Chemeketa Community College. He would end up working at Chemeketa for over 35 years, touching the lives of thousands of students who came through his classroom. In addition to teaching classes in computer science and math, he also contributed to many educational innovations at the college. David spearheaded the development of Chemeketa’s first computer lab, helped create the Math Lab where students could take self-paced math courses, and was one of the first teachers at Chemeketa to record his courses on video.

Although his career at Chemeketa eventually came to an end, his love for education didn’t. He joyfully took on a volunteer position at Union Gospel Mission in Salem, teaching and writing curriculum for math classes for men pursuing their GED. He loved working with these men so much that even after he no longer felt comfortable driving his car to get there, he simply began riding the city bus instead. David continued this work at the Mission until his dementia progressed far enough that he no longer could.

Although David was passionate and dedicated to his career, he never failed to be present as a husband, father, and grandfather. He took great joy in playing with his children, helping them with their homework, going on school field trips with them, attending their games and concerts, and reading to them at bedtime. He was just as involved and interested in the lives of his grandchildren. He leaves behind a family who never doubted for a moment how deep and unconditional David’s love for them was.

The beautiful family of David and his wife Sherrie includes his five children and six grandchildren as well as their partners and spouses—Laura, Nate, Malia, Travis, Liz, Mikki, Andrew, Hannah, Tim, Tami, Amy, Ryan, Kate, Craig, Korra, and Ben.