Donna Jean Meier Hart McDaniel 1931 - 2025

She found art and design in the everyday, admiring the form and function of flora and fauna, architecture, genealogy, ikebana Japanese flower arranging and fiercely championing her nuclear family, extended family, forever friends or friends she knew for 24 hours--she loved them and the pursuit of knowledge with wild abandon--that is the force known as Donna Jean Meier Hart McDaniel.

She was born May 20, 1931, in Appleton, Wisconsin. Her parents, Ronald and Claudia (Vassau) Meier, moved shortly thereafter to MacIntosh in Northern Minnesota when her father purchased the MacIntosh Times newspaper and her mother taught school. 

She and her parents moved to Oregon in 1947, when she was 16. She graduated from McMinnville High School and then went to the University of Oregon with both of her future husbands named Jim--Jim Hart and Jim McDaniel--whom she met on the same night at a party. She was one of the first women to graduate with a bachelor's degree in fine arts alongside the male-dominated field of art and architecture. Post World War II, fledgling artists eventually ended up teaching in her art classes, which included geodesic dome founder, Buckminster Fuller, artist, Alexander Lipschitz, and metal mobile sculptor Alexander Calder, left her brimming with ideas, including creating her own distinctive font way before Apple computing, a font she used her whole life, scrolling the iconic letters "DJ" with flourish.  She sculpted and developed a lifelong love of jewelry making. Her artistic development was enriched exponentially by her art teacher and mentor, painter Helen Blumensteil. 

She married Jim Hart in 1952,  and had three children, Michael, Molly, and Claudia, and taught alongside him at Linfield until his death in 1962. In 1964, she married Jim McDaniel. Daughter Kerry was born in 1966. 

Faced with the daunting task founding the family vineyard and building the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired house in the Dundee Hills in 1972, Donna Jean took the challenge in stride and embraced the neighborhood grapegrowing community, developing lifelong friends. 

She and Dad hosted an entire high school aged Japanese wrestling team, hosted family BBQs for 100+ relatives, and neighborhood parties at the vineyard. 

She was so generous, she had been known to take off her jewelry and purses to give to people when they complimented them; this extended to a larger circle of giving people paintings off walls, complete couch and chair sets, and even cars. She was a Girl Scout leader for 25 years and boldly traveled with them to Mexico City, Cuernavaca, and Taxco, exploring Mayan pyramids, watching the royal Ballet Folkorica perform, volunteering her crafting abilities for local underprivileged children, and being entertained by the girls and her own adventurous spirits.

In retirement, she and Jim traveled to Japan. They took a European bus and train tour through England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain. They also toured the southern United States, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Scotland, researching genealogy. 

 A member and volunteer at First Baptist Church for 40 years, she planted the entire ground surrounding the church, decorated the sanctuary with monumental flower arrangements and created a church archive that spanned 150 years. 

The four gardens of Donna Jean and Jim are spread throughout Yamhill County at their various previous residences, representing decades of their combined passion for landscape design and plants of the Pacific Northwest. 

Perhaps one of her greatest joys was encouraging her children and grandchildren to develop their god-given talents and become the best version of themselves, rarely missing a sporting event, school concert and often picking up the children and shuttling them in Grandma's taxi between activities and keeping up on their many activities and lives. Even in the final days of her life, she was talking to all four of her children and all six of her grandchildren on a daily basis, including watching her electronic screen with pictures of her great-grandson, Charlie. 

She was preceded in death by her parents, Ronald and Claudia Meier; aunts, Vivian Vassau and Catherine Vassau Hazen; her two husbands, Jim Hart and Jim McDaniel. She died on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 2025, surrounded by  family members who stayed with her all day, telling stories, singing, laughing, crying, and generally having a living wake in the honor that she deserved. 

She is survived by cousins, Judy Karr and Bill Hazen; her children, Michael (Joan Crocker), Molly (Steve MacArthur), and Claudia and Kerry (Christian Boenisch); grandchildren, Elizabeth McDaniel Funk (Chaz Funk), Tristan McDaniel, Ian McDaniel, Claire Boenisch (Nate Swedberg), Maxwell Boenisch (Grace Everett), and Jillian Boenisch; great-grandchild, Charlie Funk; along with adopted daughter-in-law, Jan LaRocca; and adopted granddaughter, Jenifer LaRocca Marshall.

A memorial service will be held at 11:30 a.m. Monday, December 22, 2025, at the First Bapist Church, 125 S.E. Cowls Street, McMinnville, followed by a reception at Golden Valley Brewing. The service and reception are open to all who would like to attend.