Dayton Waller

Dayton Hollis Waller, Jr. (born April 2, 1925),^[1] is a businessman from Shreveport, Louisiana, who was a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives. He served a single term with six other at-large members from 1968 until 1972.^[2]

Background

Waller was born in Shreveport to Dayton Waller, Sr. (1895-1988), a native of Haynesville in Claiborne Parish in North Louisiana, and his wife, the former Elisabeth Lane (1902-1946),^[3] the fourth of five children of Shreveport industrialist Charles W. Lane, Sr., and the former Addie Noel. Charles Lane, the grandfather of Dayton Waller, Jr., was orphaned at thirteen. Self-educated, he became the owner of the Giddens-Lane Company, a bank director, an appointee of the Caddo Levee Board, and later established the Charles W. Lane Company.^[4] The Lane Company is engaged in the management of commercial real estate development, agricultural lands, and petroleum and natural gas holdings. For years the firm was managed by E. Alton Sartor, Jr., another grandson of Charles W. Lane and hence a cousin of Dayton Waller, Jr. Sartor's wife, Jean Oliver Sartor, was an artist in Shreveport.^[5]

Dayton Waller, Sr., the son of Shadrack Columbus Waller (1860-1932) and the former Mary L. Dawson (1865-1941), was a director of the C. W. Lane Company. The senior Waller was a United States Navy veteran of World War I, a Shriner, and a member of the American Legion and the First Baptist Church of Shreveport. After the death of his first wife, Elisabeth, he married the former Blanche Hagan (died 1989), a native of Dry Prong in Grant Parish, by whom he had a second son, the half-brother of Dayton Waller, Jr. Dayton, Elisabeth, and Blanche Waller are interred at Forest Park East Cemetery in Shreveport.^[3]

Waller graduated c. 1942 from C. E. Byrd High School and in 1947 from Methodist-affiliated Centenary College, both in Shreveport^[6]

Waller is an agent of the Deek Corporation at 800 Spring Street in Shreveport, which is registered in Texas.^[7]

Political career

Waller ran successfully for the state House of Representatives in the 1967-1968 election cycle, when Democrats swept the Caddo Parish offices. He served in the House during the second administration of Governor John McKeithen. Voted out was the Republican Representative Taylor W. O'Hearn of Shreveport, who had served the preceding four-year term from 1964 to 1968. A second Republican representative Morley A. Hudson did not seek a second term in 1968. When Waller left the House in 1972, two other Republicans were elected in single-member districts in Caddo Parish, B. F. O'Neal, Jr., and Art Sour.^[2]

Personal life

In 1947, Waller married the former Fern Reynolds (1925-2013), a native of Pleasant Hill in Sabine Parish and the daughter of Wendell E. and Flossie P. Reynolds. Like her husband, Fern Waller was a graduate of Byrd High School and Centenary College, from which she majored in fashion apparel and marketing. Mrs. Waller and her friend, Marilee Harter, owned a Shreveport apparel store, Hart-Wall I & II, later Fern Waller's, Inc. She also developed menus for her husband's former restaurant,^[8] "The Evangeline".^[9]

The Wallers donated the bridal suite of the First Baptist Church of Shreveport in appreciation to God for their four children, Dayton H. Waller, III (wife Kellye), Elizabeth "Sissy" Waller Johnson (husband Walter Fair Johnson), Elaine Waller Moreau (husband Doug), and Kathryn Waller Long (husband Donnie).^[8]

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