In Memoriam: Donna Jean Meier Hart McDaniel

Co-founder of McDaniel Vineyard

By Kerry McDaniel Boenisch

She found art and design in the everyday, admiring the form and function of flora and fauna, architecture, genealogy, ikebana Japanese flower arranging. She fiercely championed her nuclear family, extended family, forever friends and friends she had known for only 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, Wis. Her parents, Ronald and Claudia (Vassau) Meier, moved shortly thereafter to MacIntosh, Minnesota, when her father purchased the MacIntosh Times newspaper and her mother taught.

In 1947, her family moved to Oregon when she was 16 and she saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. She never got over her love of the beach and the mountains. We spent the majority of our family trips rock hunting in the sand, hiking or even more boring, a garden tour.

She graduated from McMinnville High School and then went to the University of Oregon with her future husbands, both named Jim– Jim Hart and Jim McDaniel –whom she met on the same night at a party. She also developed a lifelong friendship with their friends Malcolm Maresh, Pat Taylor and Joe and Gloria Jensen, among many others. 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 sculpture Alexander Calder. They 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 he died in 1962. She married Jim McDaniel in 1964. Daughter Kerry was born in 1966. They greatly enjoyed their years in McMinnville, developing lifelong friends with many who are here today and spending time at the large McDaniel/Brooks family functions.

Faced with the daunting task of founding the family vineyard, now known as Torii Mor Winery, 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 grape-growing community, developing lifelong friends.
She and Dad hosted an entire high school-aged Japanese wrestling team, hosted family BBQs for 100-plus relatives and neighborhood parties at the vineyard. They adopted the Vu family when they were airlifted out of Vietnam in the mid-1970s, becoming Mom Dj to all of the Vu children.

She was so generous, occasionally giving her jewelry and purses to people when they complimented her. 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 twenty-five 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 with lifelong friend Vivian Webber as a travel guide with a group of physicians. During the trip, the locals assumed they were physicians and started calling them Dr. and Mrs. McDaniel. They took a European bus and train tour through England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Italy and embarked on a coast-to-coast tour of the United States from Dundee to New York City, driving their newest Mercedes of course, and surprisingly remained married. They toured all over Minnesota and Wisconsin, visiting relatives, where she reinforced her lifelong love of cheese. They also toured the southern United States and Scotland researching genealogy, and visited all six of the Hawaiian Islands.

A volunteer and member of First Baptist Church for 40 years, she designed and planted the entire grounds 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 four 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, keeping up on their many activities - even in the final days of her life was talking to all four of her children and six of her grandchildren daily, watching their pictures on her electronic screen and keeping up with the growth of her great grandson Charlie in Denmark.

I see her essence in my siblings and grandchildren; her determination, drive and occasionally dramatic gestures emphasizing a point.

She loved her daughter-in-law, Joan, Joan's sister Jan and son-in-law Steve like they were her own children. She was thrilled with Grace and Nate, the newest spouses to join the family. She loved Christian and he understood that her love language was organizing and acted accordingly, taking it in stride when mom would color code his closet, starting with white of course and ending in black - he would come home from work and say with a smile, I can tell your mother has been here.

On her last day, Thanksgiving, we learned she wouldn’t live much longer. The 19 family members coming for the holiday instead descended on her care home for a living wake where we encircled my mother's bed, crammed into the room, arms around each other and her; laughing, crying, telling stories, telling her we loved her, holding each other in moments of grief and generally sending her off exactly as she would have wanted.

She was preceded in death by her beloved friends of 55 years, Mary and Noel Martin and Gloria and Joe Jensen; her parents, Ronald and Claudia Meier, Aunts Vivian Vassau and Catherine Vassau Hazen, her two husbands, Jim Hart and Jim McDaniel. She often marveled at being born an only child; how did she get so lucky to have a large extended family? She died on November 27th, surrounded by said family members staying with her all day; telling stories, singing, laughing, crying and generally having a living wake in the honor that she deserved. List all living here including cousins Judy Karr and Bill Hazen - who she considered siblings, four children Michael (Joan Crocker) Molly (Steve MacArthur) Claudia McDaniel Chalk, Kerry Boenisch (Christian Boenisch), grandchildren Elizabeth McDaniel Funk (Chaz Funk), Tristan McDaniel, Ian McDaniel, Claire Boenisch (Nate Swedberg), Maxwell Boenisch (Grace Everett), Jillian Boenisch and great-grandchild Charlie Funk.

Kerry McDaniel Boenisch is an author, speaker, wine judge and "Wine Sisters Cheers to Change" Vlog co-host Regina Jones Jackson. She is currently working on her fourth book, "Fall Down, Stand Up, Learning From Loss Amidst the Vines- The Beginners Guide to Grieving and Finding Joy” due 2026. Her three books are "Vineyard Memoirs," "Dirt+Vine=Wine" and "Intertwined- Grief, Gratitude and Growing a Vineyard." Find her in her barn vintage furniture store at www.dirtvinewinefarmandfurniture.com.