(portion of an address given by Ralph Jones of Pocatello at the funeral of David M. Daniels at Malad, Nov. 21, 1952)
David M. Daniels was born in Brigham, Utah in 1850, just prior to the Civil War, the son of sturdy pioneer settlers. In that year the West was a new unsettled frontier. These facts are now related to you in order that you may better understand the philosophy of life that shaped his colorful career.
Born in the West, Uncle Dave from infancy knew the rigors of frontier life and this certainly accounts in large measure for the toughness of both mind and body that he later displayed in all his activities.
At the close of the Civil War, David M. Daniels moved to Malad with his parents and their family. This family was among the first to settle in Malad Valley. Malad, being a new, unsettled community, did not afford the opportunity for formal education, now enjoyed by the children of this city, and as a result, Uncle Dave’s formal education was necessarily limited. However, he did take advantage of limited facilities then available and his accomplishments in later life disclose that he overcame this handicap.
In the year 1880, he was married to Gertrude M. Dives, now deceased. There were born of this marriage eight children, namely; Walter Daniels, deceased; Annie Eliason, deceased; David M. Daniels Jr. deceased; Mary D. Tuttle, deceased; Eli Daniels, Jennie Sellars, Mabel Buchanan, LaMar Daniels, deceased.
Uncle Dave’s youth and early manhood was spent in Malad assisting his parents in their farming activities. Part of this time he devoted to moving freight from Corinne, Utah to Butte, Montana. During one such trip to Butte, he learned that an undeveloped farm on Medicine Lodge was up for sale, which he purchased at a very reasonable figure. By unremitting toil and effort, in a period of one year, he placed the entire acreage under irrigation and cultivation and then sold the same at a very substantial profit. This was the beginning of his financial success.
After returning from Medicine Lodge, he made Malad his headquarters and commenced farming and stock raising at both the heads of Malad and Bannock (now Arbon) Idaho, going into partnership with another pioneer, Verland Dives, now deceased. After the dissolution of this partnership he acquired a very large stock ranch on the Fort Hall Bottoms, Bannock County, Idaho. Shortly thereafter he entered a partnership with L.L. Evans, now deceased, of American Falls, another great pioneer. The cattle operations of Daniels and Evans were highly extensive.
In 1941 he moved his headquarters from Malad to Pocatello. He had lived in Pocatello only three years when his sound business judgment, integrity and his ability to get things accomplished were immediately recognized by the leaders in business in the city and two of the prominent business leaders associated with him for the purpose of acquiring valuable business property. Judge D.W. Standrod and David M. Daniels built the Yellowstone Hotel and he retained his interest in the hotel up to the time of his death. So we find at the age of 50 years, David M. Daniels was financially independent- already recognized as a leader in the building
of business, industry and farming of the West.
It must be remembered that the success attained by this man we meet this day to pay final tribute to, was not attained by luck or speculation, but rather by diligence, ambition, hard work, and long hours. To illustrate his capacity, endurance, physical strength and ability to accomplish his goal in a given time, I would like to recall two particular instances; One, that during harvest season he would work the usual long hours with laborers in the field and then after not more than five hours rest, he would arise before dawn and dig post holes until it was time to go to work with the rest of the crew. He was thereby able to fence a section of land and at the same time do as much in the field as any of his help.
Another incident of his endurance: He rode on a horse one day from American Falls to Raft River in search of some of his stock and back to American Falls the same evening. Upon arrival in American Falls a message was awaiting him, advising that his father Thomas Daniels, had just died at Malad. The ordinary man would have rested until the following day to go to Malad, but this was not true with Uncle Dave. He mounted a fresh horse and rode from American Falls to Malad during the night.
David M. Daniels continued in business in Pocatello long past the average age of retirement for a person. I believe the hardest problem the immediate members of his family ever had with their Dad was to convince him that he should retire. However, in his very late years he did retire, and he left Pocatello to spend his remaining years with his beloved daughters, Jennie and Mabel, in California.
It is interesting to note that in his life span, Uncle Dave experienced our country at war not less than five times; experienced the depressions and panics of 1873, 1803, 1907, 1920, and 1932, but in spite of the economic upheaval, caused by major depressions and pathos of war, he always weathered the storms. He continued his abiding faith in his country, his fellow man and himself.
Dave’s political philosophy never embraced governmental waste, nor governmental handouts. He always believed that a man was entitled to what he earned by honest endeavor. The only social security to which he subscribed was that which one could put in his bins, granaries and savings, to take care of the future.
Dave availed himself of one of the greatest American heritages, the opportunity for self achievement. Born of strong body, keen mind and ambitious heart. Dave as a young man was destined to be successful in his varied activities.
Dave was not only a man of simple and upright life, faithful in business, ambitious, but Dave was a typical representative of the first generation of great men of the West. He as the others in that group, of which few remain, built business and industry, converted sagebrush covered land of the untamed frontier into productive farm-land and by his vigor and labor, was instrumental in building soundly a then young and undeveloped state.
The death of David M. Daniels, a strong and good man, closes a long and useful career, which was characterized by capacity, integrity, courage, forcefulness and wisdom: the attributes which made for solid citizenship. Society can ill afford to lose such men. To a greater degree than most men he had the happy fate of knowing that his sterling qualities were appreciated by his family and the community in which he lived. He has left a record of honorable achievement in the hearts of a great company of friends who revered and loved him.
This memory of the life of David M. Daniels will always be our precious heritage.