Daniel (Dan) Robert Jorgensen December 3, 1963 - December 2, 2019

Daniel “Dan” Robert Jorgensen died of stomach cancer Dec. 2, 2019 at home in La Grande, Oregon with his wife and three children by his side, one day before his 56th birthday.

Dan was born December 3, 1963 in Citrus Heights, California, to Robert and Susan Jorgensen, the first of six children. The family moved to Arizona and then to Boise, Idaho before settling in Eagle, Idaho in 1972.

Dan learned the value and benefit of prayer from his parents and a love of reading and living God’s word. He often woke up very early in the morning to kneel beside his bed and quietly pray in the room he shared with his two brothers.

Dan had a passion for his trains from his childhood. This interest was shared and fueled by his father. They converted a ping-pong table into a railroad layout that eventually consumed an entire wing of the basement. Dan would visit train tracks near home and on trips to listen, watch, and photograph trains. He wore a Union Pacific T-shirt with its motto “we can handle it” until it became a rag. He accumulated many model HO scale diesel locomotives that he would meticulously tear apart and rebuild and repaint into more authentic and detailed versions. His passion to be a railroad engineer was derailed by the requirement to work on the Sabbath, something he would not compromise, so he opted to become a different kind of engineer.

Dan graduated from Meridian High School in 1982. A man of great reasoning power and gift for the logic of math, Dan pursued a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, taking classes at Boise State University and then graduating from the University of Idaho in 1987. He put his skills to work at Micron Technology in Boise for about a decade.

The outdoors were beloved by Dan thanks to a family tradition continued by his father of taking the children on two-week long backpacking trips into more remote mountainous regions of Idaho. In time, Dan was given the responsibility of planning the trip’s location and menu. He was a strong hiker who was sometimes difficult to keep up with or follow because if his belief that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. He took us to some unbelievable steep rocky places we likely had no business going, giving us a simultaneous sense of terror and admiration.

Dan was an incredibly patient fisherman who made his own lures from spare spoons from mom’s kitchen. He could fish at the same rock for hours until a fish would bite, but his patience did not extent to faulty gear of any kind.

Dan played sports hard, running like a Pete Rose in a church softball games. His competitive spirit was such that he was once tossed from spectatorship after repeatedly questioning an ump’s bad calls at his brother’s Little League game. He was also a notorious teaser.

As a younger man Dan liked to travel abroad to visit church brethren in Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Tasmania, Bahamas, and the Philippines. He took repeated trips to the Philippines after meeting Nancy Binos in 1996. They married Oct. 3, 2004. He helped her run a store in the Philippines for a while before returning to make their home in Haines and later La Grande, Oregon.

Dan was a member of the United Church of God and attended in La Grande where he led songs, served widows and helped with setup and sound system.

He was preceded in death by his father Robert.

Dan is survived by wife Nancy at their La Grande home; children Samuel, Matthew, and Erika; mother Susan of Eagle, Idaho; siblings Sarah of Middleton, Idaho, Timothy of Eagle, Idaho, Jennifer of Salt Lake City, Utah, Laurie of Star, Idaho, and Benjamin of Kamiah, Idaho; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Burial will be held at the Star Cemetery on December 11, 2019 at 11:00AM (MT)

A Celebration of Life Memorial Service will be on January 18, 2020 at 4:00PM at the Holiday Inn Express, Nampa Idaho (4104 E. Flamingo Ave. Nampa, ID 83687) Following the celebration of life memorial there will be a potluck dinner for everyone.

In Lieu of Flowers please send your sympathy to Nancy Jorgensen & Children to 1806 26th St. #21, La Grande, OR 97850.