Daniel Lonnie Wilson escaped to heaven on December 31, 2024. He was born to Nan Mervine (Thurston) and Herman Lincoln Wilson on December 5th, 1939, in Albany, Oregon. Growing up in nearby Jefferson, he had paper routes, played football, basketball, and track, graduating in 1958. Dan loved people and spent his entire life finding new friends and looking for ways to help folks along their spiritual journeys.

After high school, Dan went to Northwest Christian College where he got a degree that allowed him to become a pastor, and the University of Oregon where he got a master's degree in teaching. In Eugene he also met Pat Burghart who became his wife and life partner, marrying her in June of 1964. Their early years were filled with travel and transitions as they took pastoral and teaching jobs in Kentucky, North Carolina, Washington, Alberta, Canada, and finally settled in Scio, Oregon, where their children, Scott, Greg, and Rachelle spent most of their school years. Dan was a devoted father and never missed his kids' sporting and school events.

Dan's Christian faith was the foundation of his life and his work. In the latter half of his professional life Dan became a hospital and hospice chaplain where he found joy in helping people through challenging life circumstances. Dan took chaplain jobs in Portland, Roseburg, and Albany where he spent the last decade of his career. Dan was particularly skilled at connecting with people and learning their needs and life stories, helping people to know they and their loved ones truly mattered. He valued his life-long connections to his classmates in Jefferson and kept in touch with his extended family and people he had met in the variety of places he lived, creating quite a collection of Christmas cards every year.

His latter years were not easy as he slowly slipped away, and dementia eroded the person he used to be. Pat valiantly kept him home for more years that was probably wise for her and in the last few years of his life, she visited him and played Chinese checkers with him at least weekly. His family is thankful for the loving care he received at Timberwood Court in Albany and Maple Valley in McMinnville where staff do excruciatingly difficult jobs.

Dan is survived by his wife Pat; his children: Scott (Glynis Jones), Greg (Becky}, and Rachelle (Tom)Butler; seven grandchildren: Emily (Erich), Kinsey (Mateo), Jonathan (Elizabeth), Lydia, Daniel (Tatiana), Josiah, and Brendan; and one great-grandchild: Eleanor. He also leaves behind siblings: Anne Warden, Nancy McEwen, King Wilson, and Susan Oakes.