More than a Market

Danis’s Market: Content Block 4

In the foreground there are five older white men sitting on a bench. In the background in front of a building. The photo is black and white.
Elderly neighborhood friends kept this fence near the market warm socializing at all hours of the day. Pictured far right is Charles Hebert, Donat Danis’s father-in-law.

 

The second-story hall of the store was a regular gathering space for the community. Billiard hall, youth center, special event space—it welcomed all generations. During the week and in summertime, a Danis family member managed an informal youth center, where kids gathered to play the jukebox, dance, and watch movies.  For a time, it was the location of the St. John’s Club, a social and fraternal organization established in Lakeside in 1910. The club was a chapter of the Union Saint-Jean-Baptiste, a benefit society founded in 1899 to protect the welfare of Franco-Americans.