Edwin Francis Davenport was born in Michigan, to farmers William & Cora Jemima Davenport. When he was 9 years old, his father enlisted in the Union Army and left home to fight in the Civil War.
By 1880, his parents had divorced. He had moved to Louisiana to farm, but found the farm life wasn't for him. He began working as a printer's apprentice, and eventually became foreman of the composing room for the New Orleans States newspaper. He was working there when he met Margaret Louise Bolet, a young half-Irish, half-French girl from New Orleans.
Louise was born in New Orleans in 1871 to immigrant parents: her mother, Marguerite, had come from Ireland in 1850, her father Jacques Bolet, from France sometime before. Her father died when she was 6, and her mother rented out rooms in order to support them. She grew up in the French Quarter section, and met Edwin Davenport when she was 13. They were married the following year, 1886, when Edwin was 29, and Louise not quite 15. (The ages given on their marriage license of 25 and 17 were not correct). Edwin's mother died around that same year in Indiana.
Their son Byron was born the next year, then a daughter, Louise. By then, Edwin was tired of New Orleans, and decided to move to Alabama. He got a job as a printer in Birmingham, and eventually became the editor. After that, he took a job as editor of a small, county newspaper published weekly in Bessemer, Alabama, "The Bessemer Review." While they were in Alabama, they had another son, Edwin, Jr.
ALBERT BYRON DAVENPORT at 12 yrs old.
In 1897, a daughter named Marguerite was born. They moved back to New Orleans shortly after. Unfortunately, the little girl died at the age of 2.
Louise's mother, Marguerite Conroy Bolet, was in serious financial trouble, so they took her and Louise's unmarried brother Albert to live with them. The mother died in 1901, and Albert went to live on his own. Another son, Louis, was born in 1902.
Edwin had the urge to move again, so they went to Pensacola, Florida, for a few years, then to Charleston, South Carolina. Journeymen printers didn't have any trouble finding work, so moving around didn't seem to be a problem.
They decided to move back to Bessemer, Alabama and started up the "Bessemer Review" again. Louise and the children went to visit ffiends in San Antonio, Texas, and fell in love with the area. She wrote to Edwin, telling him how much she liked Texas, and he sold the Review, packed up and moved to San Antonio, sight unseen.
After seeing other parts of Texas, they decided to move once more, and settled permanently in Austin, where Edwin was hired as composing room foreman for the Austin Statesman, an independent newspaper with no political allegiance to any party. World War I was beginning, and Ed's newspaper played an important part in the community's feelings towards the War.
Their son, Edwin Jr., also became interested in printing, and got his union card at the age of I 8. He became good ffiends with a pre-med student in Beaumont who was working his way through college, and the two boys decided to ride the rails across the country, working a day at a time to pay for their food. They wound up in Canada at the start of the war, and both tried to enlist in the Canadian army. The pre-med student was accepted, but not Edwin Jr., so he went back to Texas and worked for his father on the Austin Statesman. He said that someday he'd get married and settle down, and that he'd never move around like his parents did. He kept his promise, mariying and staying in Austin his entire life.
By 1915, Edwin and Louise had 5 children ranging from 28 to 13, and several grandchildren. They thought their family was complete, but became parents for the 6th time when Ethel Coralee was born. Louise was 44 years old, Edwin was 59, and it had been 28 years since their first child was born!
Throughout the years, while Edwin worked as a printer, editor and publisher, Louise wrote articles and stories for his newspapers. She was very involved in the auxiliary of the International Typographical Union, and was one of its charter members. She became President of the Union Auxiliary, and for 19 years was a speaker, writer and lecturer on
the advantage of Union labor in the printing trade. Family stories have said she had very serious emotional problems, but no proof of that has been found.
Edwin continued working for the newspaper in Austin, retiring in 1922. His son, Edwin Jr., worked for him, and eventually his grandson, Edwin 111, too. He died in 1931 at the age of 74. Louise lived until 1940, and died at age 69.
At one point in 1960, a printer named Herb Ebner had worked for all 3 generations of Edwin Davenports at the same newspaper!