Noriko McDaniel, age 96 of Spencer, passed peacefully on Wednesday, September 9, 2026 at Sagewynn on Lake Lorraine, in Sioux Falls. Funeral Services will begin at 11 AM Saturday, September 12, with family present for visitation one hour prior at Kinzley Funeral Home in Salem. Following internment at Lakeside Cemetery in Spencer, there will be a luncheon honoring her life at the Spencer Community Center at approximately 12:30. 
Noriko Uido was born in Manchuria on May 7, 1930. Her father was a Japanese banker, stationed in China and her family was forced to return to Japan when war erupted. The Chinese/Japanese conflict would separate the family for several years, until they were reunited with her father who endured several years as a POW. 
Growing up in post WWII Japan was not without its challenges. Two of her five siblings would succumb to those challenges and have an indelible influence on young Noriko. She learned to make ends meet with a strong work ethic and frugality. She leveraged her natural gifts – a brilliant mind, quick wit, fierce determination – to thrive in difficult times.  
After completing a bachelor’s degree in Japan and while working at an US Army base near Tokyo, she met a young GI on security detail. He intervened when he saw her throwing rocks at two other soldiers who, according to Noriko, were being less than gracious. That GI, Gordon McDaniel and his family would sponsor Noriko to come to the US to complete her master’s in English Literature at Augustana University. Gordon and Noriko were married on September 10, 1960. They farmed north of Spencer, and had two daughters, Marcia and Wanda. The girls were the center of their universe.
When the girls started school, Noriko became a high school teacher, first in Canova and then in Howard. At just under five feet tall, she was simultaneously a force to be reckoned with and adored. After teaching she did social work and was a fixture in the Spencer community – a member of the Christian Church, an avid gardener who generously shared produce with friends and neighbors, an enthusiastic Spencer Cardinal fan when her girls were in high school and a McCook County Central booster for her grandchildren.
Because of her upbringing, Noriko possessed a world view uncommon in this region. She had an inherent understanding of the importance of education, but knew, too, that travel was an essential part of learning. Each summer, the McDaniels took a family vacation traveling across the US and abroad. In their retirement, Noriko and Gordon were world travelers, visiting 41 different countries. They cruised the Amazon and Nile Rivers. Together they experienced the romance of the Eiffel Tower, the ferocity of the Chinese Terra Cotta Soldiers and the majesty of the Egyptian pyramids.   
With her passing, Noriko leaves a legacy as young woman who left her family to travel around the world, learn a new language and way of life, to become a wife, mother. and grandmother, teacher, social worker, neighbor, and friend.  As an immigrant, she enriched the lives of so many others and was a lifelong testament to how we are better and stronger when we let our differences unite rather than divide us.
Grateful to have had Noriko’s influence in their lives are her daughters Marcia (Roger) Bunger and Wanda Seiler, grandchildren Matt Bunger and Missy (Chris) Janssen, Jennifer (Derek) Newcomb, Paige Jensen, Chris (Diana) Seiler and Jeff Seiler, great grandchildren Brooklyn, Alley, Jack, Orson and Otto. She is preceded in death by her beloved Gordon, parents, four siblings, granddaughter Lacey, and son-in-law, Randy Seiler.