Daniel E. Eesley
Daniel Edburn Eesley, 86, died January 7 from Alzheimer’s disease.
He was born Nov. 29, 1931, in Buffalo, New York, and grew up there and in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, Ohio.
Dan graduated from the University of Michigan in 1954, where he was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity. After graduation, he served as a Lieutenant Junior Grade in the U.S. Coast Guard. This experience left him with a deep love of nautical lore, especially lighthouses. Later in life, he helped restore the Hercules, a 1907 steam tugboat preserved at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.
After leaving the Coast Guard, Dan began work in the early 1960s in the then-nascent Bay Area technology industry, first as a systems engineer for IBM. He went on to work for Amdahl, Memorex, HewlettPackard and other leading tech companies of the time. He retired from HP in 2000.
A continuous resident of his beloved San Francisco since 1962, Dan was a San Francisco Symphony season ticket holder and donor for more than 30 years. Dan was also a champion of the California Academy of Sciences.
Dan was a mechanical genius. He took apart a car engine in his teens, and he continued to repair and maintain the family cars for decades. He could fix anything, and was known for his ingenious, simple solutions to everyday problems. A residential landlord in San Francisco for five decades, he did almost all the remodeling and repair on a triplex himself.
Twain Harte Lake was a favorite summer vacation place for the majority of his adult life. Dan’s long swims from the dock are a treasured family memory.
He was a longtime member of the Swedenborgian Church. He formerly attended the First Congregational Church in Berkeley and St. Luke’s Episcopal in San Francisco.
Dan was preceded in death by his parents, George Edburn “Bus” Eesley and Edla “Eddie” Scaife; his beloved sister Jane, who died tragically in her youth; and a brother, Richard.
Dan is survived by his wife of 27 years, Susan Thompson Lucas of San Francisco; daughters, Kate Grey of Las Vegas and Beth MacLean (Bruce) of Alameda; three granddaughters, Abby Griswold of San Francisco and Ellie and Grace MacLean of Alameda; stepdaughter Sarah Lucas Kass of San Francisco and her family; a cousin, Jeff Weed; his first wife, Joan Allnutt; and additional nieces, nephews and cousins.
For almost five years, Dan lived at Coventry Place San Francisco senior community. The family is extremely grateful to the staff for their compassionate care, especially Myat, Gam, Dora, and Josh. The family also thanks the teams at Pathways Health, especially Ann MacLeod, MD, of the hospice team, and Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, especially Jennifer Pawlowski, MD, for their understanding of Dan’s needs.
A service of love and remembrance will be held Saturday, Feb. 10, at 2 p.m. at the Swedenborgian Church, 2107 Lyon St. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the San Francisco Symphony or the California Academy of Sciences.