•Part 2
In review of Sylvia Kelly Smith's terrific, new book - "Branches from the Danner and Lytle Family Trees - From - North to South," I left off last week with the orphanage. Picking up with this sad state of affairs, Mattie Belle Danner's (Lytle) brother Henry Danner ran away from the orphanage and joined the circus. Later, he served with the U. S. Army overseas during World War I, and he also served in World War II, reportedly with some of his time spent working as a chauffeur for General Douglas MacArthur. He also served as part of the Military Police, a role for which he - a big, husky fellow - was well suited.
His size, together with his experience, is also likely what landed Henry Danner in Washington Parish, working for the logging companies in Bogalusa. Apparently, he was a tough fellow, one to be reckoned with, transporting prisoners to work at the Great Southern Lumber Company sawmill. As Sylvia Smith explained in her book, "Handling the prisoners could be a trying job sometimes. Once, when one of them was causing a lot of trouble, Henry hit him to stop the ruckus. That blow sent the fellow onto a root, killing him. We don't know just what time frame this occurred, but figure it must have been sometime near the beginning of the Bogalusa sawmill. The other prisoners did not realize that the fellow broke his neck in the fall, causing his death. They decided to follow orders closely after that, thinking that 'Big' Henry could really do some damage with just one blow."
And he told fantastic stories. Apparently, Henry had made the acquaintance of the infamous Frank James, who was the older brother of the outlaw Jesse James, visiting the bandit on his family farm after his days of crime were over and after the governor of Missouri had freed him.
Yet, Henry had a soft spot for his family. Around 1946 he took family members, including his sister Mattie, on a cross-country trip to visit their sister Catherine May Danner who lived (and died in 1965) in California. By the late 1940s he had made a permanent home with Sam and Juanita Smith's family who moved from Folsom to Franklinton about that time. Using lumber from an old Army barracks in Mississippi, he helped disassemble the old Barracks, load the lumber, and transport it to a new homesite for the Smith family in Franklinton. Generous and family oriented, Henry succumbed in 1972 in Franklinton and is buried in Ellis Cemetery.
Drawing on Sylvia Smith's book and the valuable research contained therein, I was mesmerized by the occupations of her mother-in-law Juanita Lytle Smith's ancestors. Genealogical information comes from a variety of important sources such as headstones in cemeteries and the U. S. Federal Census. Often the latter, and sometimes the former, offers insight as to an individual's occupation. Some of the early, interesting ones found in the book are butcher, coal miner, miller, shoemaker, cigar maker (occupation of a boarder, not a blood relative), printer, railroad flagman, painter, farmer, and coal mine fireman.
Juanita's father Grover Cleveland Lytle who married her mother Mattie Belle Danner in 1909 in Indiana had worked as a car repairer with the G. & E. I. Railroad. It was his work with the railroad that brought the family to the Deep South sometime after the 1920 Census was taken. Juanita and her brother James Chester Lytle (1910-2002) moved with their parents to Stamps, Arkansas, where their father worked for the Louisiana & Arkansas Railroad. He was a car inspector, carpenter, and timekeeper for the railroad. And by 1930, Juanita's brother Chester worked as a cotton buyer. He eventually retired in 1976 as Postmaster for the Shreveport Post Office.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't note how Juanita Lytle Smith met her husband Sam Smith on a blind date. A 1933 graduate of LSU, he was in Minden, Louisiana, doing Soil Conservation work as a technical foreman in a Civilian Conservation Corps camp where he trained the CCC enrollees and the foremen to reduce soil erosion. Coincidentally, he was rooming with the boyfriend of Juanita's good friend, and the fellows were renting accommodations from her friend's aunt. The friend's beau was Robert "Bob" Moore of Franklinton, Louisiana, who became the husband of Hester - longtime residents of Babington subdivision. A military hero - U. S. Army Colonel - and friend of my family's, Mr. Bob also worked for the U. S. Government as a civil engineer. And small world that it is, he was George Moore's brother. That is, my "Uncle" George Moore married to my "Aunt" Marah Burris Moore, who were the parents of Duke Moore and Jan Moore Jenkins.
Sylvia Smith has generously donated copies of her newest book to the Washington Parish Library where you might want to peruse it. I can say with certitude that it's worth a look, a wonderful look at the past.
