In Memory of Dan Cassens
Dan and Jackson riding in the sleigh
Professor · Wood Products Specialist · Christmas Tree Grower
Sawmiller · Teacher · Mentor
December 15, 1946 – May 3, 2026
Dan’s life’s work lives on in the family he loved and guided, the trees he planted, the woodlands he cared for, the students he taught, and the businesses and traditions he built.
For nearly half a century, trees and wood were woven through every part of Dan Cassens’ life. They were his profession, his classroom, his business, his recreation, and ultimately an enduring part of the legacy he left behind.
Whether teaching Purdue students, helping customers select the perfect Christmas tree, sawing logs into beautiful hardwood lumber, or restoring the historic Morehouse Farm with Vicki, Dan approached everything with curiosity, hard work, generosity, and a genuine love for helping others.
The story that follows is a celebration of the life, work, family, and traditions of a man who touched countless lives and whose legacy continues through Cassens Trees, Cassens Lumber, the students he taught, and the family he loved.
A Life Rooted in Trees and Wood
For nearly half a century, trees and wood were woven through every part of Dan Cassens’ life. They were his profession, his classroom, his business, his recreation, and ultimately an enduring part of the legacy he left behind.
Dan’s connection to the land began long before his career at Purdue University. He grew up on a 300-acre tenant farm near Dixon, Illinois, where hard work was simply part of life. He and his older brother, Bob, worked on the farm, belonged to 4-H and FFA, and spent free Sunday afternoons fishing, squirrel hunting, and collecting fossils. Dan later remembered words of encouragement from Bob before showing a champion hog at the county fair, writing that he carried that encouragement and guidance with him throughout his life.
That farm upbringing grew into a lifelong fascination with wood and wood manufacturing. Dan earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois, a master’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Those studies led to a career devoted to understanding wood, teaching others about it, and helping people use one of nature’s most remarkable renewable resources.
40 Years at Purdue University
Dan came to Purdue University in 1977 as a professor and wood products specialist in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. Before Purdue, his work had taken him to Louisiana State University, the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, and the California Forest Products Laboratory in Berkeley. Even during college, he spent summers working at a hardwood sawmill.
For more than 40 years, Dan worked closely with the hardwood lumber and veneer industries and with manufacturers and users of hardwood products. His work connected Purdue with trade associations, sawmills, manufacturers, woodworkers, and others throughout the hardwood industry. He collaborated with organizations including the National Hardwood Lumber Association, the American Hardwood Export Council, the Indiana Hardwood Lumbermens Association, and the Forest Products Society.
Education was at the center of Dan's work. Well over 15,000 people registered for educational programs he initiated and conducted. He authored hundreds of technical publications on subjects including wood decay, finishing, and preservation; wrote three agricultural handbooks and a U.S. Navy manual; produced the award-winning CD Hardwood Lumber of the Central Midwest; and wrote a handbook on manufacturing and marketing eastern hardwood lumber produced by thin-kerf band mills.
Dan retired from Purdue in May 2017 after 40 years of service, but he wasn't quite finished teaching. He returned as a Limited Term Lecturer to teach Wood Identification and Wood Products Manufacturing—subjects that reflected a lifetime of knowledge and experience.
The Teacher Beyond the Classroom
Dan's classroom extended far beyond Purdue. Over the years, the farm, Christmas tree fields, woodlands, and sawmill became a learning ground for Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources students. More than 20 students might work at Cassens Trees during a Christmas season, and many returned year after year.
Dan did not expect students to arrive knowing everything. He found out what they could do, taught them what they needed to learn, trusted them with responsibility, and expected them to do the job correctly. Students learned to plant, shear, shake, bale, and sell Christmas trees; work around the sawmill; handle logs and lumber; operate equipment; and serve customers. Just as importantly, they learned about work ethic, business, leadership, responsibility, and treating people well.
Former students have described Dan as patient, forgiving, generous with his knowledge, and deeply interested in their education and careers. Some came to think of him less as a boss or professor and more as a mentor, friend, or grandfather figure, and many stayed in touch long after graduation. For Dan, teaching was never confined to a lecture hall; it was simply part of who he was.
From a Few Trees to a Family Tradition
Dan planted his first Christmas trees in 1979 on just a few acres. Over the years, those plantings grew into more than 20 acres of choose-and-cut Christmas trees in two locations. He was among the early Indiana growers to successfully produce Fraser fir, Canaan fir, and other true fir species that were not commonly grown in the state at the time.
His skill as a grower earned statewide recognition. In 1995, one of Dan's fir trees won the Indiana Grand Champion Tree Award. Cassens Trees went on to win the state Grand Champion award three more times, most recently in 2021. State victories qualified Dan to enter trees in the national contest, where his hope, like that of many Christmas tree growers, was someday to place a tree in the White House.
His trees also became part of Indiana's holiday traditions. Dan had the honor of placing fir trees in the governor's office twice and in the governor's residence once. On numerous occasions, Cassens Trees also supplied trees for the Indiana State Capitol Rotunda and other state government offices, including the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the Division of Forestry.
Yet the greatest meaning of Cassens Trees could not be measured in awards. What began with a few acres grew into a place where Dan could combine his love of the land with family, teaching, and tradition. Generations of customers returned to choose their Christmas trees, Purdue forestry students learned by working alongside him, and the farm became an important part of the life Dan and Vicki built together.
Seeing the Beauty Inside a Log
Dan's other great passion was hardwood lumber. In 1995, after receiving a small inheritance from his mother, he purchased his first Wood-Mizer band sawmill. He used it to saw timber from improvement cuttings and storm-damaged trees, for custom sawing, and for Purdue demonstrations. Some of the lumber was kiln dried and sold to local custom and weekend woodworkers.
Over time, one Wood-Mizer became another, and Dan continued developing his ability to turn logs into beautiful hardwood lumber and live-edged slabs. Following his retirement from Purdue, he grew Cassens Lumber into a full-fledged business.
For Dan, a log was never simply a log. His training and experience allowed him to understand the species, quality, grain, defects, drying characteristics, and potential hidden inside it. The sawmill brought together the scientist, teacher, forester, craftsman, and businessman in him. He could take a tree from the woodland, understand why it grew as it did, saw it carefully, dry the lumber, and help another person turn that wood into something useful and lasting.
Home, Family, and the Land He Loved
For all Dan accomplished professionally, home was where he was happiest. He loved walking through the woods, caring for his Christmas trees, working at the sawmill, and simply being in tune with nature.
Dan and Vicki met at Purdue University and married in 1988, bringing together a blended family of five children - Louis, Laura, Rick, Denise, and Jodi. To Dan, however, there were no distinctions within that family. He loved, encouraged, guided, and took pride in all five children as his own. As the years passed, eight grandchildren became an equally treasured part of the family.
In 2000, Dan and Vicki purchased an 1878 brick Italianate farmhouse and five outbuildings on Morehouse Road. For 20 years they worked to restore the property they named the Levi and Lucy Morehouse Farm. Dan cut and dried much of the lumber used in restoring the home, two barns, and three additional outbuildings. In 2013, the farm was successfully listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The restoration reflected much of what defined Dan: respect for the past, patience, craftsmanship, perseverance, and the belief that something worth preserving was worth doing properly.
A Family Tradition at Christmas
Cassens Trees became part of family life almost from the beginning. When Dan and Vicki married, their youngest daughters were only six and seven years old. That first Christmas season, the girls began making wreaths to earn a little spending money. Vicki charged them a dollar or two for materials—an early lesson in hard work and the value of what they earned. Their first wreaths were modest creations, but customers bought them, the girls kept practicing, and over the years they became accomplished wreath makers. Jodi continues that tradition, making and decorating nearly 200 wreaths each Christmas season.
Each of the children found a place in the Christmas tree operation, and in time the grandchildren joined them. Louis continues to play an important role, processing cut trees and overseeing the farm crew, including the Purdue forestry students who work each Christmas season. Over the years, all five children and all eight grandchildren have been part of the Christmas season at Cassens Trees.
No matter how busy life became or where careers took them, Christmas had a way of bringing the family back to the farm. Some returned to work and help wherever they were needed. Others came to visit or to choose a tree for their own homes and families. Children who had once worked beside Dan eventually returned with children of their own.
In that way, Cassens Trees became far more than a business. It became part of the rhythm of the family - a place of work, tradition, laughter, memories, and roots shared across generations.
What Dan Was Proud Of
Dan wrote his own obituary because there were parts of his life and work that mattered deeply to him and that he wanted remembered. He was proud of his 40 years at Purdue, the thousands of people he helped educate, the Christmas trees he learned to grow in Indiana, his Wood-Mizer sawmills and hardwood lumber, and the historic home he and Vicki restored together.
But for all those accomplishments, nothing made Dan prouder than his family.
Education had shaped Dan's own life, and he believed deeply in its ability to open doors. He brought that same belief home, encouraging and mentoring all five of his children as they pursued their own interests, education, and careers. All five earned college degrees. Rick followed his mother's path into computers. Jodi earned a degree in physics from New York University. Louis became an engineer, earning a master's degree and building a successful career of his own. Laura also earned a master's degree and became a high school teacher of Spanish and German. Denise is completing her Ph.D. and beginning a career in botany with a fascinating focus on growing plants in space.
Dan was proud of their degrees and careers, but his pride went much deeper than credentials. He was proud of the people his children became, the lives they built, and the paths they chose for themselves. That pride extended naturally to his eight grandchildren as he watched them grow, pursue their educations, discover their own interests, and begin finding their places in the world.
Dan had the rare privilege of watching the things he valued pass from one generation to the next. His children and grandchildren built lives and accomplishments of their own, yet the farm remained a place that drew them home. That continuing connection to one another, to the land, and to the traditions they shared was among the greatest parts of the legacy Dan created.
Dan's Legacy Continues
The things Dan created did not end on May 3, 2026. The Christmas trees he planted are still growing. The hardwood forests he cared for remain for future generations. The beautiful hardwood lumber and live-edged slabs he sawed are still part of Cassens Lumber, finding their way into the hands of woodworkers who can give them new life. Families will keep making Christmas memories at Cassens Trees. And the knowledge Dan shared lives on in the work and lives of the many students, colleagues, woodworkers, growers, family members, and friends he taught and encouraged.
Vicki will continue the businesses they built together, carrying forward the work and traditions that were such an important part of their life together. In doing so, she hopes to preserve what Dan created, share what he loved, and ensure that his spirit and legacy remain forever at the heart of Cassens Trees and Cassens Lumber.
“When a tree is planted, hope takes root.”
Dr. Daniel Lee Cassens
December 15, 1946 – May 3, 2026