Daniel Logan Steen was born September 15, 1920, in a farm house in the Red Top community in Young County, Texas; he flew west into the Lord’s hands from Conroe on September 4, 2010. Funeral services will be held at the Cashner Funeral Home Chapel on Wednesday, September 8, 2010, with interment to follow at Garden Park Cemetery.
Daniel was preceded in death by his parents Walter P. Steen and May Prideaux Steen, by a sister Mildred, brothers Alfred and Enoch, daughter Debbie Steen Hinds, and by wives Mary Harper Johnson Steen, mother of his children, Betty Jo Williams Steen, and Louise Ellis Wiley “Piggie” Steen. He is survived by daughter Jane Steen Conant, and daughter Danna Steen Horak and husband Mark Horak, and three granddaughters Mary Horak, Annie Horak and Dana Horak.
Daniel graduated from Graham High School in 1938 and entered Texas Tech in Lubbock in the fall of that year.
In the fall of 1939 he began flight training in addition to his regular college classes as part of a government sponsored program to build our air force in response to growing threats in Europe and elsewhere. He made his first solo landing at the Lubbock airport in February, 1940, when it was a mile square pasture.
In February, 1942, a hiring team from Pan American World Airways recruited Daniel at Texas Tech. He left Lubbock for New York where he was inducted into the U.S. Navy and assigned to Pan American to be a crew member on seaplanes that had been requisitioned by the Navy and were being operated under contract by Pam American. They were the only aircraft then capable of non-stop ocean crossing. This era ended in 1944 with Daniel’s transfer to MATS, or Military Air Transport System, which involved operation of C-54 land planes equipped as hospital ships shuttling between Miami and Casablanca. MATS allowed a serviceman with a traumatic injury in the European Theatre to arrive in a hospital room in Miami within 24 hours.
The end of WW II in 1945 was also the beginning of Daniel’s commercial flying career, which continued until his retirement at age 60 in 1980. Although as a very young man he had plowed fields behind teams of four horses, his dreams of flying airplanes had been thoroughly realized in a wonderful 38 year career with Pan American. He logged over 3,000 ocean crossings with destinations on every continent plus many islands in between. He flew multiple historic commecial airliners and spent the final seven years of his career in command of a Boeing 747.
In 1977, contemplating retirement, Daniel joined other former Pan American pilots in River Plantation, commuting to NY until his retirement in 1980. Upon his marriage to Piggie Wiley in 1999 he moved on to Panorama Village, where he lived for the remainder of his life.
Daniel was a long time member of the First United Methodist Church in Conroe. Any memorials may be forwarded to First United Methodist Church at 4308 W. Davis St., Conroe, TX 77304-4284.
SHARE OBITUARY
v.1.8.18