What an interesting life. Dan grew up in a small town just west of Rochester NY. His teen years coincided with the hippie era. I remember his crafting began as a teen, when he would bring in black walnut wood from the nearby forest and carve the logs into decorative items for the house. Even though he was talented at schooling, he repeated throughout his life that he much preferred working with his hands.  

He was 21 in 1969,  the year of Woodstock. After deciding not to go to Woodstock, and during his one year of college at the University of Buffalo, he met Helen Nusbaum, to be his first love.  Together they abandoned the academic life, moved to California and married. Their daughter Rebecca was born in the early 70s, the first grandchild of Lewis and Naomi Scott, and the third grandchild of Simon and Ruth Nusbaum. Danny and Helen parted ways later that decade and Rebecca moved with her mother to PA, FL, and back to CA. 

In the 80s, Dan partnered with Brenda Crowner and became step-father to her children,  Andrea and Marshall.  In the mid 80s, Brenda and Dan were blessed with their daughter Kelly Anne and their son Jason. Throughout this time, Dan developed skills in carpentry, landscaping and gardening, rock-hounding, stone-cutting, and silver jewelry making.  He and Brenda kept horses for trail rides and ponies for children's parties. He collected semi-precious boulders around California, often carrying jade and jasper boulders out of the mountains on his back. Then, he sliced them in his giant rock saw and shaped them for jewelry and set them in silver. He also traded for exotic stones from around the world for his jewelry making. On into the 90s and early 2000s, his crafts and jewelry creations sold well at the art fairs and flea markets. 

Even in his last months, he looked forward to gardening, growing pumpkins and flowers, and cultivated hundreds of succulents for sale at the flea market. He loved building and making with wood, his last project being redwood planter boxes with which to show his plants at the flea market. He remained always curious, always interested in learning about ways to help the environment, to solve water shortages and other environmental issues. Soft-hearted to a fault, in his declining years, he devoted himself to caring for kittens.

He spent his last weeks with his step-son Marshall. He spoke often of his faith in God and Jesus, and he so looked forward to coffee and home cooked meals with his lady friend Maya.