David Edward Easterday

David Edward Easterday was born in Springfield, MO and spent much of his life in Kansas City, MO. He died in Austin, TX, where he and his wife of over fifty years, Sammy, had moved twenty years ago to be near their children (Stephanie, Anastasia, Jennifer), grandchildren (Sol, Siena, Pascale, Zita-Louise, Anneliese, Marius), and family, (Sergio Ajuria, John Richardson (deceased), Jaco Conradie). Unflappable and patient, Dave was known for his quiet and unassuming kindness. He possessed a dry sense of humor and a keen intellect. The most important thing in the world to Dave was his family; he took joy in any time they spent together. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

The youngest child of Herman Easterday and Willeta (Hilsabeck) Easterday, Dave was the last surviving member of his immediate family, which included his sister Dorothy Lovett and brother John Easterday. Gifted with a great memory, Dave recalled taking his first walk around the block holding hands with Dorothy and her friend. He also remembered being a mischievous child. As a toddler, he licked all the frosting off his birthday cake before it was served. Around the same time, he stuck his head in between newel posts and couldn’t get it out; someone had to saw through the posts to rescue him.

Dave attended Blessed Sacrament Catholic school and Rockhurst High School. He graduated from Rockhurst College and accrued many graduate hours. During his two years in the Army Chemical Center in Maryland, he received his first patent for an antidote to nerve gas. He went on to have a long career in analytical chemistry. An avid genealogist, Dave was president of the Germans from Russia Society in the Midwest for some years. He spent many weekends doing research and travelling to churches and cemeteries. In his later years he was an active volunteer for the Vincent de Paul Society in Austin, TX, a member of the League of Women Voters, and a member of St. Austin’s Catholic Church.

Ahead of his time, Dave was a hands-on father, getting up in the night with his daughters when they were small and sharing fully in parenting responsibilities. It is hard to overstate Dave’s patience and even temper. His daughters recall him only becoming angry perhaps once or twice in their entire childhood. He was steady in a crisis and steady in ordinary life. Whether someone got into a fender bender or cracked an engine head, Dave calmly worked to solve the problem. Rather than raising his voice, he’d drop gems such as “If you ever see steam or smoke coming out of the engine, pull over right away.” He also trusted that his children were competent, such as when he calmly explained to a teen driver how to turn into the curve on ice and then left them to their post-winter-storm drive. He treated his daughters as capable people rather than as fragile princesses, and he never mansplained.

Dave’s career and life were interrupted in his early 60s by a serious cancer diagnosis. He endured having two stem cell transplants to achieve a 20+ year remission, and followed his medical specialist through four university settings in four states. Although his health suffered, he soldiered on to live a rich and active life. While his diagnosis led to an early retirement as a chemist, Dave pursued a second career at the IRS following his recovery, gracefully showing what it is to persevere when things do not go as planned. Sammy was a great advocate who helped Dave in all things, and her focus on his health certainly added quantity and quality to his life.

While far from extroverted, Dave took joy in organizing reunions and other get-togethers. This usually included a big research effort to track down people. Some of his events included a reunion for Shaeffer’s Root Beer Stand employees about 50 years after he and his brother John had worked there. He also organized a 50-year reunion for his 8th-grade Blessed Sacrament class. And, as he and his army friends grew older, he helped the group re-connect and plan fun trips to various locales.

The main cook for the family, Dave had an adventurous interest in all sorts of cuisines. As he developed his skills over the years, he put together multi-course meals casually and without stress. Showing up to Sammy and Dave’s house in the late afternoon almost always included an invitation to stay and eat whatever he had made. Dave liked experimenting with new recipes and exploring interesting ingredients, often going to multiple stores or online sources to find specific items. He brought his chemistry background to bear on his cooking—measuring, weighing, and observing reactions.

Dave had a love of literature and poetry which he shared with his family, such as reading Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart” when his daughters had asked him for a bedtime story. He enjoyed both non-fiction and fiction and could recall specific details of what he’d read decades later. He particularly liked the poems “The Boys” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Little Boy Blue” by Eugene Field, and the poetry collection A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Housman. He appreciated wit, puns, and wordplay, once winning some degree of notoriety (and a corned beef) for an original limerick.

Dave enjoyed camping and fishing. In his younger years he and friends went on trips to the Ozarks and Minnesota. He gave each of his daughters a fishing pole and showed them how to cast. He organized family fishing trips and was unperturbed when only Stephanie showed any aptitude — Stacy and Jen opting to eat cheese puffs and quietly liberate minnows over the side of the canoe. On one camping trip, when his daughters complained about the flies, he observed that if all fly larvae survived, in about six weeks the entire surface of the earth would be covered with flies.

Dave loved travel, crisscrossing the U.S. on myriad road trips, going on cruises around Alaska and the Mediterranean with Sammy, and touring parts of Europe. When visiting Ireland and Germany, he used the opportunities to conduct genealogy research.

A naturally curious autodidact, Dave had a sharp, critical mind. He would opine about topics he had researched and was equally at ease fixing a car, explaining Pokémon to the uninitiated, or talking about the cultural significance of Lady Gaga. There was nothing Dave could not repair, from toys to cars to appliances. He could design and build just about anything too, from a porch, to animal hutches, to a Festivus pole. He often invented creative solutions to complex problems and would at times fabricate a necessary component for a repair. Undaunted by new challenges, Dave thought, researched, and read. His family has many memories of Chilton’s manuals checked out from the library, trips to Western Auto for car parts, and Dave performing whatever car repair had to be done.

An avid sports fan, Dave followed the Royals, Chiefs, and Mizzou. He also watched women’s softball and attended live UT women’s sporting events. A few times, when he made a successful bet on a horse or greyhound race, he took his family for steaks and jumbo martinis at the Golden Ox. Dave could multi-task as a sports fan, often listening to one game on headphones while watching another one on TV.

Dave and Sammy were generous hosts and welcomed anyone who needed a place to stay —friends, family, friends of friends — for a day or a year. Dave could perceive a need and meet it without being asked. For example, when Stacy had to put down her much beloved dog, Winston, Dave had dug a grave in her backyard by the time she returned from the vet. When Jen’s disposal broke, Dave simply showed up to her house with a new one and installed it. He volunteered to spend a Saturday morning as a judge in one of Stephanie’s high school debate tournaments. He would drive an hour and a half to take someone homemade soup when they were sick. In his easy manner, he always conveyed that these acts of kindness were no big deal.

Of course, it is impossible to relate all Dave was and all he did in a mere obituary. It is impossible to note every way he touched the lives of those who knew him. Suffice it to say that he lived his life well for as long as he could with the people he loved. He was the one and only Dave. In the cosmic stretch of time, there will be no other like him.

So, let us remember Dave’s favorite toast to celebrate a life well-lived:

Prost! Zicke zacke, zicke zacke, hoi hoi hoi!