Morris Clayton Daniel

Morris Clayton Daniel, 80, passed away Wednesday morning at his residence in Regency Retirement Village, Huntsville following a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s disease.  He was preceded in death (less than 3 months earlier) by his wife Sue of 59 years.  They have called Decatur AL home since 1993.  Morris was born on Christmas day 1940 and was raised in Covington, TN.  He is a US Air Force veteran having enlisted at age of 17 and served as an aircraft instrument repairman.  Morris and Sue met in 1961 while Morris was stationed at Luke AFB in Arizona and were married later that year.  Following the Air Force, he moved his young family to Knoxville and earned an engineering degree from the University of Tennessee and forever loved the “Big Orange”!  Morris began his career with Teledyne Brown Engineering in Huntsville working on the Space program supporting NASA as a structural engineer on Skylab and the Space Shuttle programs.  He went on to spend much of his adult career as a civil servant with the US Army Corp of Engineers (COE) ensuring construction quality assurance for many critical projects all over the world.  International assignments with the COE included on-site projects in Saudi Arabi, Kuwait, Iraq, and throughout the middle east.  He worked on domestic assignments to Anniston, AL, Touella, UT, Washington DC, Atlanta GA, Ft Greely AK, and finished his professional career before retiring from the COE in Huntsville, AL.  Morris’s diverse contributions ranged from overseeing reconstruction of the Parliament building in Kuwait City following the first Gulf War to supporting the Pentagon refurbishment in Washington DC.  Morris loved to travel, and he did all over the world with his career; the UT Vols and all of college football; hunting elk in Wyoming; restoring old cars like his original 1965 Ford F-100; barbequing pork with his “secret sauce” recipe that was handed down from his Dad; and most of all being with his girls and grandkids!  

Morris was husband to Sue of 59 years; father to daughters Peggy (and Todd) Eklof of Spokane, WA and Lisette (and Bill) Colson of Madison, AL; grandfather “Papa” to Julian, Cassidy, Katie, Ryan (and Katie), and Jacob; brother, brother-in-law, uncle, friend, and colleague to many more.  He was preceded in death by his parents Frank and Flora Daniel of Covington, TN.  Morris will be greatly missed, and we are grateful his suffering is no longer.  The family thanks the caregivers of Pathways at Regency Retirement Village and Hospice of North Alabama for taking great care of Morris and improving his quality of life.