Daniel Cheney, 87, magazine publisher

Daniel L. Cheney was a blood bank technician at an Army hospital in West Germany in the 1950s when he became friends with a fellow Army tech, Eugene W. Jackson.

After Jackson returned to Philadelphia, he called on Mr. Cheney to join him as a staffer for an in-house magazine, Consultant, at Smith, Kline & French Laboratories.

In 1970, they left to form a magazine publishing firm that eventually became Springhouse Corp., in Spring House, near Ambler.

After a few ideas didn't seem to work, the pair hit on a monthly magazine for nurses, "to show how to deal with difficult clinical problems," Mr. Cheney's wife, Eleanora, said.

That venture, Nursing71, started a 20-year string of publishing successes, she said.

On Friday, Feb. 19, Mr. Cheney, 87, of Marlton, died of Parkinson's disease at home.

Jackson died in 2000. His daughter, Susan Tressider, said, "Nurses really responded to the style of the magazine. They felt the style of the writing really resonated."

While continuing with the magazine for nurses, the pair began a publication named Learning, Tressider said, "for the legal aspects of nursing."

The firm went on to publish other magazines and books before the pair sold it in 1990.

Born in Vernon, N.Y., Mr. Cheney graduated from Whitesboro (N.Y.) High School, earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at Colgate University in 1950, and served at what is now Landsthul Regional Medical Center in Germany.

While an accountant for General Electric Co. in Auburn, N.Y., he married his wife, Eleanora, in 1959.

In 1988, the Cheneys established their family-funded DanEllie Foundation in Marlton. They closed it in 2015.

Concentrating on "services for the financially disadvantaged, including housing and social services," the foundation distributed $1.38 million in 2013, its most recently reported year, according to a website for foundations.

Mr. Cheney financed a chair at Colgate to honor his late father, LaVerne, and a scholarship at Cherry Hill High School West to honor his late stepson, Jon W. Dinsmore, who died in 1996.

A 50-year member of the United Methodist Church in Haddonfield, Mr. Cheney attended adult Sunday school classes there and for a time was a member of its board of trustees.

Walter Earley, a retired chemical engineer who has known the Cheneys since the 1960s, was a church trustee, but at different times than Mr. Cheney. "He had an interest in biblical studies," Earley said, enhanced by a trip the Cheneys took to Israel.

And Mr. Cheney was a bit of an adventurer, he said, such as when he sailed with Earley and his wife, Dolores, from Maine to a berth on the Chesapeake.

He was a former board member of what is now Methodist Hospital of Jefferson University Hospitals in Philadelphia.

Besides his wife, Mr. Cheney is survived by stepdaughters Patricia Walter and Nancy Dinsmore; nine grandchildren; and 25 great-grandchildren.

Visitation was set for 11 to 11:45 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 25, at the United Methodist Church, 29 Warwick Rd., Haddonfield, N.J., 08033, before a life celebration at noon there.

Donations may be sent to the church at the above address.

Condolences may be offered to the family at kainmurphy.com.

wnaedele@phillynews.com

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