Meet The Daniel Family -- Mulberry Lavender Farm History: Episode II
/The farm has many stories to tell. It has been confirmed by living descendants that this farm was a happy gathering place. Life is good on Mulberry Creek. Let’s introduce you to the Daniel Family, who called the farm home for more than a century.
Wiley and Sue Daniel
Wiley Butler Daniel 1842 - 1931
Susan Elizabeth Waggoner 1847–1914
“Sunday was a day looked forward to with great anticipation. After Sunday School all Daniel kin would gather together at my home place. It was glorious. There were nearly two ball teams full of cousins to play with all afternoon long. We would dash for Mulberry Creek. Visualize: cousins jumping off logs into the swimming hole, cousins playing tag and climbing trees, cousins playing ball, fishing, or sitting on grandpa’s knee. We would eat so much and so fine we all just about to pop. Then we’d jump up and head out until the fireflies became electric magic before our sleepy eyes.”
Three generations in one household
According to the census of 1930, there were three generations present in the farm house.
On April 17, 1930, the enumerator listed John A. Daniel and his wife Louise, followed by their children Joe (13),
Butler (7), Nancy (6) and John’s father W. B. Daniel (88), as widowed at that time.
Wiley was a Civil War Veteran and survivor of that horrific episode, and more on that later. After his release in June of 1865, he walked 200 miles to get back home to his sweetheart Sue, all the way from somewhere in Georgia. That same year he bought 540 acres on West Mulberry Creek and married later that year with Sue Waggoner, the same Waggoner family who adopted Jack at the age of 6 when his father passed away. Sue was their only child and became Jack’s adopted sister, and through the marriage with Wiley, also Jack’s (his real name is Jasper) sister in law.
