Mary B. Daniels

She was born at the family farm in Broussard Cove (now Maurice), Louisiana to Otis J. and Rosebella (Broussard) Broussard on July 21, 1922, the first of three children. As both Mary’s parents carried the recessive gene for Usher Syndrome, brought to Louisiana by the Acadian settlers, she was the only sibling to avoid deafness and blindness. When Mary started school, Acadian children (she detested the use of the term Cajun) were punished for speaking French on school grounds. As a result, she was bi-lingual from an early age and tri-lingual after learning American Sign Language.

Graduating from high school with typing and shorthand skills, Mary worked for the District Attorney for Vermilion, Lafayette and Acadia Parishes for $25 per week. She moved to Crowley and boarded with a widow who lived near the courthouse. Mary loved the work, and secretly always wanted to be an attorney.

Mary was 16 when she first met her future husband, William Hawk Daniels, while visiting relatives in Milton, Louisiana. According to her it was interest at first sight. This was during the Great Depression and she remembered he was wearing a rope for a belt. Their courtship lasted through mobilization for WWII, and the couple married in 1942 in Toccoa, Georgia where Bill was stationed at Camp Toccoa.

Following the war, Bill continued his career in the US Army and Mary traveled to meet him in Europe, bringing their two small daughters. The family lived in Germany, where their son was born, and in France where Mary learned that contrary to opinions in the US, she could understand and be understood in French with ease.

Bill left the Army in 1954, and Mary worked alongside him to start a diner called MarBil’s, their version of McDonald’s, in Arizona. While the business was successful, the work didn’t suit Bill. After selling it, the family eventually returned to Louisiana. Bill enrolled in the LSU Law School, (fulfilling Mary’s vicarious dream of becoming a lawyer) while Mary supported the family running another diner, the AutoEat. A third daughter was added to the family.

After Bill’s law school graduation, Mary retired from working life and settled into raising the four children in the home they built. Mary was proud of the home and its yard, and she would live the remaining years of her life there.

At the time of her death, Mary had been widowed for 40 years, prececeded by her brother Joseph Leslie Broussard and sister Della Mae Childress. She leaves behind her daughters Dianne Daniels Harrison Martinez, Donna Daniels Wakeman and Deborah Daniels Davitt, and her son William Hawk Daniels II. She is survived by her grandchildren Holt (Diana), Stephen (Carrie) and Katherine Harrison, Seth Wakeman and David Davitt, 6 great grandchildren, 6 great-great grandchildren and various nieces, nephews and cousins.

Visitation will be April 19 at Greenoaks Funeral Home, 9595 Florida Blvd, Baton Rouge, LA., from 9:30 to 11:30. Burial will follow in Graceland Cemetery, Abbeville, LA at 2:00pm.