Thula Kennel Daniel, 1886–1990, and Russell Harwood Green, 1888–1942

Born on 22 March 1886 in Henderson County, Kentucky, Thula Kennel Daniel was the fourth of seven children born to Theophilus Anless Fillmore Daniel and Elizabeth A. (Shoulders) Daniel. Thula married Russell Harwood Green in Matthews, New Madrid County, Missouri, on 4 December 1910. Russell, the oldest of seven children, was born on 29 February 1888 in Bessville, Bollinger County, Missouri, to John Frederick Green and Mary Elizabeth Jane “Betty” (Sitzes) Green Lane.

Shortly before Thula’s sixth birthday, her mother died, having developed pneumonia while butchering hogs. Death was common; sisters Aldenia (1884–1890), Louetta (1890–1891), and brother Charles D. (1891–1892) had died before their mother.

Thula’s oldest sister, Ida Florence, married Ruben Allen Gray on 13 July 1893. Thula and her sister Brunetta (Louetta’s surviving twin) went to live with them in Anderson, Warrick County, Indiana. By 1902, Ruben Gray, his father-in-law T. A. Daniel, and brother-in-law James Monroe Daniel found a new home in the Sikeston, Scott County, area and the family joined them, arriving in a covered wagon on Christmas Eve 1902.

Meanwhile by 1910, Russell Green was living with his widowed mother Mary in Big Prairie Township, New Madrid County. His siblings Estel, Arthur, Della, Nella, and Earl were still at home, listed in the census as farmers. Russell married Thula Daniel that December.

Their first child, Cedric Stanford, was born on 12 November 1911 in Sikeston followed by Hazel Kathleen, born 19 August 1914 in Chaffee, and Allena Elizabeth, born 14 June 1917, also in Chaffee. By this time, Russell was working as a car inspector for the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad, “the Frisco.”

The family began to move to St. Louis County. Russell and his brother Estel “Eck” appear in the 1928 St. Louis County directory living on Redman Avenue identified as “station firemen,” working the greenhouse furnaces for the St. Louis Rose Company. Thula cooked for its workers. Russell would continue working as a truck gardener for the Rose Company, where he died of a heart attack on 3 December 1942, with burial at Memorial Park Cemetery.

During World War II, Thula took care of Cedric’s children, Christine Elizabeth “Bunny” and Cedric Curtis “Sonny,” while Cedric served in the Navy and his wife Christine Ola Harsh did war work. Thula later took care of others, most notably as housekeeper for the Bowman family and their two daughters from September 1952 to May 1963 in St. Louis City. She was an excellent seamstress. She regularly sewed dresses for the children, including a memorable Christmas gift of five blue felt poodle skirts for her granddaughters and the Bowman girls.

By 1963, Thula lived with her daughter Allene and son-in-law James “Frank” Archer and then at a nursing home in Festus from late 1977 until her death on 20 March 1983, just two days short of her ninety-fourth birthday. She joined her husband Russell at Memorial Park Cemetery.

Written by Venita Archer Lake
September 2018

© 2017 St. Louis Genealogical Society

 
 
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