Warren Eugene Dickman

A celebration of Warren’s 93 years will be held at 10:00 a.m. Monday November 25th at Holy Family Catholic Church in Yakima. A luncheon reception will follow at the church hall.

Warren was born at home on the old Dickman family homestead in Sheridan County, Kansas on July 27, 1931. His parents were John Reinhart Dickman and Magdalen Elizabeth (Schlageck) Dickman (known as Betty), also both Kansas natives. Due to the financial stresses of the Great Depression and the destructive natural forces that created dustbowl Kansas, the family moved numerous times beginning in 1937 – Oregon, Arizona, back to Kansas, Idaho and finally once again to Oregon.

Warren graduated from high school in Nampa, Idaho in 1949. Sadly, he lost his mother to illness shortly before his graduation. Soon thereafter, the remaining family, consisting of his two sisters Jane and Kay and brother Jim along with their father relocated to a farm recently purchased on land within the new North Unit Irrigation District outside of Madras, Oregon. Warren met Joan Schatz in Madras, who happened to be out from her native Nebraska visiting relatives in Madras. They married in 1954 and eventually had five children.

After completing military service in Korea as a US Army Staff Sergeant, Warren worked several jobs in Madras before finding his calling in the irrigation business, initially working as a ditch rider for North Unit in 1959, and ultimately as the manager of Yakima-Tieton Irrigation District beginning in 1975 and retiring in 1991. Warren thrived in this work. It was challenging, interesting and with abundant opportunity to be outside and not have to milk cows.

Warren found comfort in his faith and joy in his large family and many friends. It is impossible to describe how he will be missed and by whom in a few short sentences. But those who know him will understand. He is survived by his sister Jane and his five children: Kathryn McDaniel, John Dickman and his wife Chris, Tony Dickman and his wife Mitzi, Mary McDaniel and her husband Kevin, Paul Dickman and his wife Nancy plus three nieces, three nephews, twelve grandchildren and twenty great grandchildren. Warren was preceded in death by the untimely loss of his younger sister Kay and father John Reinhart in an automobile accident in 1952 and his brother Jim in a workplace accident in 1969. Joan Dickman passed in 2016.