{"id":11225,"date":"2020-12-04T16:59:35","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T16:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/?p=11225"},"modified":"2020-12-04T17:02:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T17:02:20","slug":"a-tribute-to-c-dan-wright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/a-tribute-to-c-dan-wright\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan C. Wright ’56"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tribute to C. Dan Wright\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

From Tom & Jan Tatham<\/em><\/p>\n

We met at OWU Freshman Camp [Mary Horton, on the outskirts of Columbus] in the fall of 1952. We shared cottage rooms with the likes of Pardoe, Jefferis, OJ, Pettigrew, Davies, Apple and Halbin (If memory serves me right). Upperclassmen who \u201ccoached\u201d us in the ways of OWU were DeVos, Halliday, Eiken, and Davenport, outstanding reps of Beta and OWU. Its no wonder we all pledged Beta, though Dan had to make peace with the Chi Phi\u2019s where he had made earlier commitments.<\/p>\n

Pledging Beta was totally a result of the leadership we found at 54 W. Lincoln in addition to the upper-class camp counselors. Metzel, Simpson, Hahn, Nobis, Linderer, Doan, Rich, Smith, and Meredith to name a few. \u201cMama\u201d Linn was the icing on the cake\u2026.a perfect housemother if there ever was one.<\/p>\n

Part of \u201chazing\u201d for pledges, included being assigned a partner to make a special weekend trip. By the grace of God, Dan was assigned to partner with me. The exercise was to arrive at the Beta House early Saturday am, be stripped of any money in our pockets, taken to Rt. 23 at the edge of Delaware, given instructions to go to Ohio U in Athens, find the President of the Beta chapter, and have him autograph a note, and to return to Delaware on Sunday! Hitch hiking was the mode of transportation, and an easy way to travel in those days. At the last moment before leaving, our big brothers slipped us some cash to enjoy the trip. Off we went, performed our chores, enjoying the OU brothers who took us to the Athens downtown hangouts for Saturday night fun. Easy for me to remember as I had never before seen so many young coeds with so many bottles of beer on their table!<\/p>\n

Dan was immediately one of my best friends and brother. I learned of his life growing up in Union City and how hard it had been for his father to support his family at his small, neighborhood grocery. Dan worked there and had many yarns to tell of wringing chicken necks and cleaning the chickens for sale.<\/p>\n

His sophomore year, Dan and Sara set a wedding date, and many of us were there for the celebration. We had a great time, but the \u201cbachelor party\u201d was too much for me. Not sure how I got there. The next morning I woke up having slept on the living room floor of Dan\u2019s home beside Gatie Chambers. We barely made the wedding.<\/p>\n

Dan and Sara moved into an apartment in Delaware, where several of us frequently visited for Sara\u2019s special bean soup. It is still a favorite of mine. Supporting a new family [Cathy came along], Dan had 2 jobs and they consumed his time. It was a major task for him, but he did it in grand style.<\/p>\n

Dan and Sam Pardoe, another pledge brother, both acquired jobs in Dayton with one of Dan\u2019s contacts from Delaware. Fortunately for both me and Don Jefferis, another pledge brother from Union City, acquired jobs with GM in Dayton, so we had quite a few good friends together to start our careers.<\/p>\n

By 1960, after a few years in the military, Jefferis and I returned to Dayton only to find that in the meantime, both Dan and Sam had left work in Dayton. Dan had returned to Union City to his father\u2019s grocery and Sam left for Washington DC, where he had grown up, to make his fortune in building and developing homes.<\/p>\n

Dan and Chet (his father\u2019s name was Chester and that was also Dan\u2019s 1st name) successfully expanded the grocery business with stores in both Union City and Eaton, Ohio. Dan emphasized that his philosophy for success was to \u201calways treat customers, employees and your friends with love and respect\u201d and \u201cshare your good fortunes with them\u201d. Most important to Dan was \u201cthe family comes first\u201d and he built his life around all of those important values.<\/p>\n

Soon, Dana and Stu arrived in the family as it continued to grow along with Dan\u2019s successes. The Wright family lives were filled with vacations, horses, fishing for Sara, and a lot of fun in the sun. And always family!<\/p>\n

In addition to his very successful business ventures, Dan was one of the respected leading citizens of the community and spent many years with his business skills serving on a local bank board of directors. Retirement came in the early 1990s. Soon, the and Sara tried a move to Florida with Jeff, Dana and he family grandsons, JD and Paul. Dan, son-in-law Jeff and grandsons loved and played a lot of golf, so Florida seemed the right spot for them.<\/p>\n

It soon turned out to be a \u201cno go\u201d being away from his roots, so they returned to live in Dayton Oakwood for a few years. Their roots again called for a return to Eaton, to repurchase the home they had sold before their travel to Naples, Florida. Dan always said he was a small-town Ohio boy, and that is where many of his close friends lived.<\/p>\n

About that time, both Don Jefferis and TJ retired from GM. Ann Tatham was helping daily with raising her grandsons Alex and Sam, and Janet Jefferis returned from their home in Detroit to expand her very successful \u201cJefferis Interiors\u201d business. Tom and Don retired except for \u201coccasional\u201d golf and gin games with \u201cbuddies\u201d. The Tatham, Jefferis and Wright family \u201cbuddies\u201d and wives spent many fun occasions together.<\/p>\n

On more than one occasion, Dan would call Tom and he would say, \u201cT-square, a few of the boys are going to Hilton Head for a stag golf outing\u2026can you make it?\u201d Other calls from Dan were \u201c..how about a weekend with the boys in Indy for golf, gin and some great steaks for a few nights?\u201d My answer was always \u201cwhen do we leave\u201d and do I have to sleep with Dan again?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some years after Sam Pardoe died in April 1989, Dan called me and said that Sam\u2019s brother had called and needed some help. Sam had left quite a sum of money to OWU for student scholarships and appropriate contacts were needed to make the arrangements. Dan called me and said can you help me? \u201cYes, of course\u201d was my answer. We made a one-day trip to OWU, met with the right Development Staff and soon had a successful plan for the funds to be sent. To this day, I have checked the OWU financial scholarship records to ensure that a separate Sam Pardoe Scholarship fund of $50,000 provides the fund\u2019s earnings to worthy student scholarships. It still exists and protects Sam\u2019s purpose in giving to his alma mater as he intended.<\/p>\n

Another, one of many, examples of Dans care for others occurred in the late 90s. On more than one occasion, I called Dan and said that we had Beta brothers who needed some help. Dan was quick to say, \u201chow much is needed and when do you need it for them? One case included us buying an airline ticket for a brother so he could come to Dayton-Eaton for a weekend golfing reunion with brothers from the Ohio area. On more than one of these weekends, these reunions included Neff from Dayton, DeVos from Cleveland, Doan from Cincinnati, Ecker from Gallipolis, Dan Wright from Eaton and Dan Rich from the east coast. What a great time we had.<\/p>\n

Another case of \u201cneed\u201d required us to drive to Gallipolis to support a Beta brother down on his luck. In this case as well, Dan was ready to step in and help with whatever was needed. Off we went to Gallipolis. We met with Jim Dailey, another brother Beta who, after 25 years as a dentist, was the President of the local Gallipolis bank. Arrangements were made for local help well as for our support to solve the problem of the Gallipolis brother in much need of help. I am sure that there were numerous other examples of Dan\u2019s generosity which is beyond my knowledge.<\/p>\n

Dan never spoke ill of anyone, considered the goodness in others and he never turned away from helping others in need.<\/p>\n

There are many other things in my memory bank. All positive. He always thought the best of others. That\u2019s the way he lived his life and the way we will remember him.<\/p>\n

On many of our daily phone visits, Dan and I would frequently reminisce as to our great fortune having lived in the US, being raised by our loving family, neighbors, teachers and friends. From the depression of the 30s, through WW II and other challenging times, we benefited throughout our lives. It was a period of time of great fortune for what our nation, our form of government and our culture provided.<\/p>\n

Monthly visits to Dan and Sara were always on our calendars.
\nWe were \u201cconfidantes\u201d for each other. For the past few years, there was hardly ever a day when we didn\u2019t talk on the phone.
\nOur visits always ended with a \u201chug\u201d. Dan always enjoyed the \u201ctouching\u201d and so did I. My last visit to Eaton, a few weeks before his passing, was exactly the same along with the call later to ensure I was safely home and from Dan his \u201cthanks for coming, it means a lot\u201d.<\/p>\n

What more could any of us ask for in a lifelong friendship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tribute to C. Dan Wright\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 From Tom & Jan Tatham We met at OWU Freshman Camp [Mary Horton, on the outskirts of Columbus] in the fall of 1952. We shared cottage rooms with the likes of Pardoe, Jefferis, OJ, Pettigrew, Davies, Apple and Halbin (If memory serves me right). Upperclassmen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-of-ever-honored-memory","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11225"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11229,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11225\/revisions\/11229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}