Danny Paul Erickson of Boulder, Montana passed away on July 24, 2024, after a long fight with cancer. Danny's distinctive life was full of contradictions. He often lived at a distance from those he loved, but his support was unconditional. He cherished nothing more than being alone, but his charm and wit endeared him to many.

Danny was born on January 21, 1942 in Great Falls, Montana, to Ferne Maxine Good and Roy Lee Erickson, Jr. The Ericksons worked in dairies, and the Goods farmed wheat. Montana's prairies, rivers, and open spaces were Danny's true home throughout his life.

Danny attended elementary school in Great Falls. After his mother's death when he was 10, he moved with his father and stepmother, Luella Erickson, to Seattle, Washington and then to Torrance, California, where he graduated from high school in 1960. He traveled home to Great Falls and environs whenever he could.

After high school Danny enrolled at El Camino Community College, before enlisting in the United States Air Force. He trained and served as an air traffic controller in Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fukuoka, Japan. He earned an honorable discharge.

Danny's experience in the USAF opened the way for him to join the Federal Aviation Administration as an air traffic controller. He worked in the airport in Goleta, California. There he met Brenda Carol Turlington, who he married and who accompanied him to San Juan, Puerto Rico and then to Atlanta, Georgia, where he was a controller at Hartsfield Airport. Brenda and Danny made a home south of the city in rural Tyrone, Georgia. They bought twenty acres of land, designed and built together by hand a first and then a second home, and established a small farm with a few head of cattle. Their three children were born and grew up in Georgia.

A heart condition led to Danny's early departure from the FAA in 1980. For a few years following, he trained future air traffic controllers at the University of Oklahoma and continued to work as a builder.

In 1991, Danny returned to Montana, living again in Great Falls, and then in Floweree and Plains. Danny lived with little. His spare and simple lifestyle enabled him to set much of his modest income aside to support his three children's college education. He was deeply committed to their having this opportunity.

Danny was a self-taught carpenter and folk artist. His humor and singular aesthetic showed up in the fantastical creatures and tin-punch patterns that adorned his light fixtures and the seats of his chairs. He carved flowers into furniture edges and crafted baskets and cabinet handles from curving branches of local trees and windbreak shrubs. All of these were projects for the "40-below days," he liked to say. Born into a generation of Americans obsessed with having more and more of what was new, Danny enjoyed working creatively and imaginatively with what was used and already at hand. He thought that what he had was enough. He truly understood the difference between needs and wants.

In addition to his creativity, Danny was an avid reader who loved nothing more than lying in a hot bath on long evenings reading history, politics, and fiction. Rarely was a book returned to the library that had not first been dried out on the heater.

There were two big wounds at the core of Danny's early life, both the result of trauma during his childhood. They shaped who he was and the decisions he made through much of his life. Both hard work and good fortune helped these wounds heal in his later years.

Danny and his two siblings were separated from each other early in their lives. They each grew up with family members, but not with one another. As maturing adults, Danny and his brother and sister decided to spend their later years together even though they had not been able to share the early ones. Shelle bought a plot of land close to the Boulder Hot Springs in 1980. Danny later helped her build a permanent home there, relocating a log cabin from the woods onto a hillside plot overlooking the valley. After a few expansions, and now under a signature corrugated roof, it is a sunny and warm home for his beloved sister.

Then Danny and Calvin (Larry) designed and built conjoined bachelor pads in town a few miles away. They took something crumbling – one of Boulder's oldest log cabin structures, long-hidden under decaying siding – and brought it into the light. They made new additions that matched the historic style. In their reassembled family, Shelle was Danny's primary support through a decade of medical struggles, and her presence and love improved and extended his life. Shelle and Calvin were with Danny when he passed peacefully.

Paradoxically it was cancer that helped heal another wound. Danny became addicted to alcohol early in his life. After his 2014 cancer diagnosis, Danny's desire to survive proved stronger than his addiction. He lived sober for the last ten years of his life. Those years allowed new relationships with his adult children and his grandchildren, slow summer visits when his extended family gathered by pitching tents in his yard and eating dinners crowded together on the back porch. In the end, Danny had the chance to share his beloved Montana rivers and valleys with his children and theirs.

The kind people of Boulder, Montana sustained Danny in numerous ways over his years in town. Lisa Vossler and her team at the L&P, and Josh Morris at Elkhorn Pharmacy, kept Danny nourished and supplied. And Donna Gilmer was a steady support for Danny and Shelle in all seasons.

Danny was blessed to have excellent and humane care from his oncologist, Dr. Justin Thomas of Bozeman, for nearly a decade. Mark Kishbaugh of Montana City provided wise and careful counsel. Maria Wing of Basin kept Danny company and tried persistently to get him to eat something other than hot dogs and M&Ms during his last year, and her husband Jim Wing patiently drove her to Danny's home each day. Melinda Harron of Headwaters Hospice and Alex Smith from Jefferson Valley EMS provided comfort and a patient audience for his jokes.

Danny Paul Erickson is survived by his sister, Michelle (Shelle) Young of Boulder, Montana, his brother, Calvin (Larry) Edholm of Tucson, Arizona, and his former wife Brenda Erickson of Fayetteville, Georgia. His children and grandchildren are: Ansley Erickson of New York, New York, her partner Daniel Seltz, and their daughters Lily and Tessa; his son Keefer Erickson of London, United Kingdom, his partner Iona Fergusson, and daughters Stella and Sukey; and his son Seth Erickson of Santa Barbara, California, his partner Angel Diaz, and their son Teo.

The family welcomes visitors to an open house to celebrate Danny's memory at the last of the homes he built for himself, 415 Second Avenue, Boulder, Montana, on Friday, August 30 from 2-4 pm. In keeping with Danny's lifelong love of reading, donations in lieu of flowers are welcome to the Boulder Friends of the Library, PO Box 589, Boulder, MT 59632. Please note "In memory of Danny P. Erickson."   Simple Cremation Montana has assisted the family.