James L. Daniels Jr.

James Leon Daniels, Jr., our family’s beloved patriarch, died at dawn, August 14, 2016, after a three year battle with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. One of America’s diminishing number of World War II veterans, James Daniels, known to all his family as “Pop”, was preceded into his after-life by his wife of over 50 years, Doris Raye (Burt) Daniels; and by his son, Dana Lane Daniels; and grandson, Nicholas Coulter. He now resides with these and other members of his family, and, we are quite certain, continues to tell the stories of his life, friends, and family. He is survived by his baby sister, Ola Lois Howell; sons, Robert Maury Daniels and James David Glenn Daniels; daughter, Dauna Daniels Coulter; grandsons, Robert Glenn Daniels, Dana Leon Daniels, Dan Coulter, Michael James Daniels and Matthew John Daniels; granddaughters, Michele Daniels Lewis, Jennifer Daniels Zuniga, Katherine Keller Daniels (Capps), Emily Jayne Daniels (Strohmeyer); and several great grandchildren. Born in a dog-trot cabin on Owassa Road in the Brownsville community outside of Evergreen, Alabama in his beloved Conecuh County, his parents James Lenzie and Jeanette ‘Mamie’ Brown Daniels, never found financial rewards in depression era Alabama, but the loving family legacy of their clan, and Pop’s early belief in education, family, and fishing continues to run strongly through today’s generations of Daniels, Howells, and Coulters. Jim attended Lyeffion Elementary and Jr. High School and Evergreen High School, where he was a standout bench-mate and occasional court warrior on the basketball team, and where his lifelong friendship and numerous adventures with Maury Thames and Bob Bozeman were born. Almost immediately after graduation from Evergreen High in 1943, with America heavily involved in WWII, James and later, Maury joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. It was Maury who force-fed Jim three pounds of bananas so he could meet the weight required for him to join the service. Recently Pop told our family the story behind their selection of this new branch of the armed service, which would eventually become the U. S. Air Force. He stated that when they saw a fellow high school grad return home to Evergreen in his new Army Air Corps uniform, they thought it was ‘lots sharper’ than the Naval uniforms they had been prepared to wear. Staff Sergeant Jim Daniels survived 45 missions as a tail gunner in B-24 Liberators, serving in the 98th Bomb group of the 15th Air Force in Italy. He returned home after the war to marry Doris Raye Burt and enter the University of Alabama on the G.I. Bill. He graduated from the University in 1949, and obtained a Masters degree under Dr. Hudson Strode at the U of A shortly after. He taught in Lyeffion, Andalusia, Montgomery, and then moved to Huntsville, where his employment during the birth of NASA took him all over the US over the next 25 years. His varied NASA assignments included program management at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), accompanying dignitaries to Saturn V launches at the Cape, and serving in an Executive Secretariat role as Dr. Werner Von Braun’s right-hand man during the post-Apollo era when the ‘rocket man’ transferred from MSFC to NASA HQ in Washington, DC. But Pop’s love for his family, Alabama’s Smith Lake, Gulf Shores’ white sands, and the Crimson Tide always brought him home to Alabama. A life-long outdoorsman, wine-maker, gardener, educator, writer, and chronicler of a thousand stories, we say goodbye with love, to our father, grandfather, great grandfather, brother, uncle and friend, our ‘Pop’, James L. Daniels. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Leukemia Society or Faith Chapel in Huntsville. Visitation is at 2 p.m. Friday, August 19, at Faith Chapel. Services will follow at 3 p.m. in the Chapel, and burial will be at Valhalla Memory Gardens, 698 Winchester Rd. Huntsville, AL 35811.