Duane Frederick Siegel

(Aug. 5, 1942 - Sept. 3, 2018)

The family of Duane Frederick Siegel is very sad to share the unexpected passing of their husband and father on September 3, 2018.

Duane was born in Andrew, a small community in eastern Iowa, on August 5, 1942, the third child of Emily Lydia (Daudel) Siegel and Amil Frederick Siegel. He was ever a delightful younger brother to his sister Carol (Siegel) Crawford, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and his brother and bunkmate Paul Siegel, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Duane played basketball and baseball at Andrew High School and graduated valedictorian of his class. He had a handful of jobs growing up, including working at the meat locker and detasseling corn. Duane also liked to fish, visit local swimming holes, and carouse with his cousin Richard, whom he said taught him a lot (all of it good, no doubt).

From 1960 to 1967, Duane attended college and then medical school at the University of Iowa, where he met some of his closest friends. He learned a great deal about the way the human body works, including that drinking tequila makes you smarter (at least for the duration of the drinking bout) and that you almost never really need to go to the doctor. He also joined fellow Hawkeyes on adventures to the West, where he enjoyed several firsts--his first peep at the ocean, his first artichoke, and his first time on skis (which he would master, becoming a skilled and elegant skier despite his late start). Although Duane would eventually move west for good, he loved his time in Iowa City and continued to root for the Hawkeyes all his life, even naming his first of a few golden retrievers “Hayden” for the coach who led Iowa to the 1982 Rose Bowl, which Duane attended with his kids, Kara and Jordan Siegel. (Sadly, Iowa lost.)

After finishing medical school, Duane served as an intern and assistant clinical professor at Sacramento County Hospital and University of California, Davis. In June 1968, he was ordered to active duty and attended the U.S. Navy School of Aerospace Medicine in Pensacola, Florida, where he learned to fly and to scuba dive and that he was somewhat susceptible to seasickness. Duane then completed two tours of Vietnam as a U.S. Navy flight surgeon aboard the U.S.S. Oriskany. He had great memories of his time in the Navy, and as a small-town boy, he felt particularly fortunate to see the world with shipmates from all over the country. Lieutenant Commander Siegel was honorably discharged from the Navy in December 1970 at Miramar in San Diego, California. Years later, when canoeing the boundary waters of Minnesota with his wife Nancy McHenry-Siegel and children, he requested that they address him as “Lieutenant Commander Shifty”--in acknowledgment of his superior boating experience and as a tribute to the Andrew barber he admired as a small child. (That superior boating experience did not prevent Shifty from once tipping the canoe while he and Jordan were fishing for dinner.)

After leaving the Navy, Duane spent one year as an emergency-room physician at Washoe Medical Center in Reno, Nevada. He then completed a general-surgery residency at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California, and his urology residency at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1975, when both the Warriors and the A’s were very good, Duane returned to California, and he stayed to practice urologic surgery at Gould Medical Foundation in Modesto, California, for over 30 years. When not at work, Duane loved running with his family and dogs, skiing at Alpine Meadows, and tucking into a large plate of spicy green chicken enchiladas (or any other cuisine from another country--the spicier the better). He and Nancy spent their last several years in Modesto living on four-acre plot along the Tuolumne River, where Duane was able to flex his green thumb, growing olives, figs, citrus, tomatoes, grapes, melons, and corn and satisfying a long-held desire to acquire a tractor. (He stopped short of getting a goat, but he talked about it often. As it was, the family lab ate enough tomatoes, underpants, and bath towels to occupy that niche.)

Upon retirement, Duane and Nancy moved to Kona, Hawaii. Duane planned to watch the sunset every night for the rest of his life, and he stuck to that until the vog (volcano smog) from Kilauea got in the way. He and Nancy golfed, cycled, paddled, and caught impressively large fish from their pedal kayak. Duane particularly loved cycling, and in 2013, shortly before his 71st birthday, he completed all 400-and-something miles of the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) on a team organized by his nephew, Randy Waldorf. Duane and his family also enjoyed seeing other countries from their bikes. They cycled Croatia’s Dalmatian Islands, Tuscany, and Vietnam and had planned a trip along Chile’s central coast this October.

After 10 years as Hawaiians, in 2016, Duane and Nancy relocated to San Diego, California, ready for a new adventure and to be closer to Kara and Jordan. In the past two years, the Siegels have enjoyed many family dinners, televised Warriors and A’s games (and a couple of in-person Padres games), Mexican meals, and trips to the dog beach. Duane had recently mastered beer-can chicken and was working on sous vide cooking. A couple months ago, he rescued a forlorn-looking ponytail palm from the trash, and thanks to his careful tending (and to the surprise of some), it’s sprouted bunches of leaves.

Duane is remembered and loved by many, among them his wife Nancy and his children Kara and Jordan, his sister Carol Crawford and her family, and his brother Paul Siegel and his family. His family and friends will honor all that he added to their lives in a service at Miramar National Cemetery, 5795 Nobel Drive, San Diego, California, on Friday, September 28, 2018, at 9:00 a.m., followed by a reception at Duane and Nancy’s home, and at a service at Andrew Cemetery, E. Madison Street, Andrew, Iowa, on Saturday, October 6, 2018, at a time to be determined. For further details, please e-mail [email protected]. In lieu of flowers, the Siegels ask that donations be made to Hospice of Kona or the Humane Society of San Diego.