David lived a long and interesting life. A rocket engineer by trade, his imaginative and restless mind drew him into many adventures, sometimes nude. He loved science and chemistry. He cheerfully tinkered with anything and was constantly seeking to invent something better, perhaps a battery or a solar cell.
He could make your old car run again. He was quick with a blow torch to help a solo sister-in-law with three little children when her townhouse heating pipes froze. In his energetic 80s, he and Mary Lou built a country French mansion in the exclusive Shadow Falls neighborhood of Minneapolis, doing most of the work themselves. A suspicious neighbor once spotted the couple's mega-vitamin stash and called in the drug cops.
He was the son of the famed Minnesota portrait artist Edward Brewer. His late sister, Barbara, was a prominent artist as well.
He will be missed by many. Our thoughts tonight are with his devoted wife of 35 years who for the past two years faithfully visited and cared for him daily at the Durango facility.
Uncle Dave with bargain blanket shoppers at an open-air market in Tijuana, Mexico. From left, Missy, Heidi, Kathleen, Jennifer and Marcelline. In 1983 Kathleen and Stan took their girls to Disneyland. A highlight was a visit with Dave and Mary Lou at their San Diego home. Dave loved a day-trip to Mexico, not for the blankets, but for the gasoline. He hated paying energy-crisis prices in the states, preferring to tank up at state-controlled prices in Mexico. He even brought back extra petrol in plastic drums. Really. He did.
