Dan's life...

 Dan graduated from high school in Holbrook and then attended college in Flagstaff, Arizona.  He also worked for the Coconino Sun in Flagstaff.  He met Beth White on Dec. 1, 1938 at the Adams Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. Her accounting of that meeting in a letter written to Virginia Mar. 17, 1967 is as follows:  "Dan stopped at the booth and Roland Henshaw introduced us.  Dan had on a green felt hat - a blue sport coat - a red tie and a pair of brown slacks.  I thought 'for pete sakes - who is this character?'  Well - it was a case of 'to know him was to love him.' "   They married Aug. 12, 1943.

Dan sailed as a gunnery officer aboard Liberty ships in the Pacific during WWII - and he came out of the service as a Lt (j.g.) in 1946.

After his military service Dan went to work with the United Press as their northwest division manager Washington, Oregon, Montana, Nevada and the northern part of California. He and Beth lived in Seattle.  Mr. Barthalomew, Vice President of UP at that time told Beth that Dan was the best newspaper man that he ever had. "Dan had a good retentive mind and certainly had the 'know how' in getting a story," writes Beth.


Beth and Dan divorced in 1949 and he quit UP and went back into the Navy.  He was assigned to a ship that was bringing back the war dead.  

Dan married a girl by the name of Margaret Skolberg in the east (possibly New York) but it was a stormy marriage and didn't last.  His third marriage to a woman named Ruth was also difficult.  According to Beth, he told his friends he was going to take his cat and leave. 

At some point Dan also worked for the Arizona Republic in Phoenix.  Ross writes that Dan became acquainted with Carl Hayden, a long time U.S. Senator from Arizona, who Dan wrote for and helped campaign.  Senator Hayden thought Dan had a good political future in Arizona.  "It was a choice experience for me to meet my brother," Ross recalls, "I thought he was so great, so important.  Everyone spoke to him when he walked along the streets in Phoenix or entered a hotel lobby.  But all of that went down the drain when he began drinking.  His drinking affected his health, making it impossible for him to keep a steady job." 

On Nov. 24, 1965 Dan passed away from cirrhosis of the liver in San Francisco, California.  Harold, who was then living in San Jose was the only family member able to attend the funeral.  For some reason Virginia never meet Dan in their adult life.  Ross had contact with him several times but a heavy snow storm kept him from being able to travel to California for the funeral.  His obituary lists him as a veteran of both WWII and the Korean War. 

Beth writes, "I have often times thought that if I could relive the part of my life that included Dan that I would never have divorced him.  He really wasn't any different after our marriage than he was before I married him.  Dan was just Dan, and I - or no one else - could have changed him.  Wisdom sometimes comes late in life."