A Celebration of Life for Daisy Daniels, age 92, will be held at 11:00 A.M., Tuesday, April 4, 2023 in Feazel Chapel at First West. Dr. Woods Watson will officiate and interment will follow at Zion Hill Baptist Church Cemetery in Union Parish. Visitation will be held prior to the service from 10:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M. at the church.

Daisy passed away at home peacefully on March 31, 2023 surrounded by her family and special caretaker, Creola Gibson. She will be remembered for loving her family, loving her Lord, and giving her life to help others, whether it was making a dress for a niece or hemming a pair of baseball pants for a friend of a friend’s child.

Daisy was born in a rural area just south of the Arkansas state line in the small community of Laran, Louisiana. The next largest metropolis was Farmerville, where she would meet the love of her life her future husband, James “Dusty” Daniels.

After graduating from Northeast La Junior College in 1949 and a summer internship in Washington D.C. with the U.S. Dept of the Navy, she enrolled in Louisiana State University and received her bachelor’s degree in education. While there she joined Alpha Xi Delta sorority, had a few dates to the LSU football games, but soon Dusty would come a callin. They got married at Mt. Olive Baptist Church, situated in the middle of two crossroads in the middle of nowhere, and from that day forward they spent 68 years together until his death in 2020.

Daisy soon got her dream job as the new home economics teacher at Neville High School in Monroe, LA. She loved the students she taught and was inspired to continue her education. With a group of teachers, she commuted to Mississippi College on nights and weekends and earned her master’s degree and soon obtained her doctorate. Always the overachiever, she packed up the boys and a U-Haul trailer to finish her resident doctorate at Oklahoma State in Stillwater while Dusty stayed home to run the family’s Volkswagen dealership in Ruston, Louisiana. During this time, she also operated Camp Daisy, a day camp located in the honeysuckle hills of Union Parish. At the camp, she and her staff taught many of her students from Neville and other young kids from the Monroe area how to fish, swim in the pond, hike the woods and ride horses.

After she and the boys returned from Stillwater with her doctorate in hand she joined the faculty at Northeast Louisiana University (ULM) where she would spend the next 15 years teaching home economics. She retired in 1984 as Professor Emeritus. While there she mentored many students, several of whom have remained lifelong friends.

After an unfortunate setback in the automobile business, Daisy, who loved ice cream, along with her husband and the help of her bother-in-law, Noel, acquired the Baskin Robbins franchise on Forsythe Avenue in Monroe. For the next 30 years they would serve up 31 flavors and make birthday cakes for all of Monroe’s finest! Later, they turned the business over to their son Doug.

But Daisy was not finished as her position on the Day School Board at Covenant Presbyterian School led to another career. She spent 9 years as director of the Day School where she continued to mentor young teachers and young children. Her final career calling came at age 78, when she joined Lynn Daniel and her mission at Rays of Sunshine…..for 10 years she worked with young women who were transitioning back into society. She loved her job there, but at age 88, she finally retired for the last time to take care of her beloved husband.

Until the end, Daisy loved cooking for her family and friends on Sundays and most every holiday and she never knew when her boys would show up with a hungry crew, so she always kept the freezer fully stocked. She loved her family and attended the Holloway Holiday each year at Toledo Bend to cook, entertain (really, just to be in charge) and to share her lifetime of wisdom to the next generation.

Daisy was a lifelong member of PEO and Alpha Delta Kappa. She also served as the Executive Director of the Louisiana Home Economics Association from 1990 to 1999.

Left behind to cherish her memory are her two sons, Doug and (Kimpa), Derek and (Jan); granddaughters, Anna Beth Bray and (Jamous), Sarah Caitlyn Daniels; grandson, William Godfrey Daniels; great-grandchildren, Oakley Elizabeth Bray and Remington Lee Bray; long-time friend Bette H. Maroney; sisters, Ann Holloway Martin and Tina Holloway Malone and brother Harry Holloway; a host of nieces and nephews and many other cherished family and friends.

Daisy was preceded in death by her husband, James Godfrey Daniels; father, Carl Douglas Holloway; mother, Gladys Wells Holloway; sister, Charlene Holloway Tubbs; four brothers, C.D. Holloway, George Holloway, Glen Holloway, and Floyd L. Holloway.

Serving as pallbearers will be William Godfrey Daniels, Tommy Cagle, Dan Thibodeaux, Jeff Golson, Brad Holloway, Keith Henry Biedenharn, David Clary, Barry McPhearson, and Richard Lajoy Daniels. Honorary Pallbearers will be Noel Everett Daniels and Dr. Henry A. Malone

Memorials may be made to the Children’s Coalition of Northeast Louisiana or a charity of your choice.

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