Room 406

Message from Lisa

Lisa Gail (Pagel) Daniel was born in La Grange Texas, a fourth generation Texan whose ancestors hailed from Austria and Germany. She grew up with her family in Houston, Texas and was involved in Brownies and Girl Scouts where she learned an appreciation of the outdoors and wildlife and in turn, many valuable life lessons (one being how to swim). At Sam Houston High School she enjoyed English and Oceanography and worked on the Yearbook developing and printing photos and sketching pictures. She got her start in sharing her poetry when she took a Creative Writing class with Mr. Delaney (Mr. D) where she had to recite her poems in front of the class. She battled with extreme shyness and found this very difficult. She liked the laid back atmosphere of the class and had a couple of poems published in the school paper. She spent many summers with her best friend, Denise at the coastal town of La Porte Texas where she experienced and found a deep connection with the ocean.

Lisa had the chance to travel to Europe with her family after high school. She was very impressed with and enthused about classic art after seeing the beautiful artworks in Italy at Rome and especially Florence. She also travelled to the communist country of Czechoslovakia on the Eurail train where there were armed guards at the border and she had to check in every day with the police under her Visa. She loved to see the beauty of the countries where her ancestors came from.

She became a mother at a young age and when her daughter, Amber was 18 months old she moved back to the families’ country farm near La Grange to raise her child with small town principles. She got a job at the La Grange Journal newspaper where she eventually learned and carried out every aspect of the process of putting out a weekly newspaper. From selling advertisements to layout to darkroom even to filling the newspaper racks and collecting the coins she did it. She worked there until its’ demise 8 years later when it was sold to the competition. She then worked for a 3 county newspaper in sales and she worked the darkroom also. She then got a job at a one hour photo shop where she developed photographs in one hour or less.

As happens in small towns, her jobs seemed to play out so she ended up with an opportunity to go to college. She travelled to Hallettsville, Texas 5 days a week to attend the Zelda L. Allen School of Vocational Nursing through Victoria College. She graduated with honors as an LVN and first worked at a nursing home, a State School for teens in two different cities, and then for a county Sheriff’s office in the jail. She keeps her license, although is semi retired from nursing. She then opened her own antiques business near her home and enjoyed that for 3 years. She is currently a “picker”’ of antiques and collectibles and sells bi-annually at a massive outdoor flea market type sale near Round Top, Texas. She enjoys finding interesting items, cleaning, sanding, painting them if need be and getting them ready to sell. She enjoys the history of “things” and feels the need to be a conservator or curator of sorts to antiques by passing them over to ones who would love them and protect them just the same.

Lisa has been writing from the early age of around 12. A quiet shy girl, she observed a lot and said little but through written words she expressed herself. Through the ink of her pen, it came easy for her. Driven by the trips her Father and Mother would take the family on, such as country festivals in small town Texas, she saw life through these colorful festivities. Trips to the deer leases in south Texas and a particular trip to Louisiana brought forth many new colors in which she paints her poetry with, even today. For those experiences, she feels deeply indebted to her parents. Lisa met Halkios while exercising her poetic wings on MySpace by sharing poems she wrote with a group of online poets. This brought great contentment to her soul with the sharing of her heart and exchange of love and compassion. Lisa is very grateful to Halkios for being her friend and for allowing her this extraordinary opportunity to contribute to the Diary of an Angel.

Lisa is married for 11 years this February, 2013 to Terry Daniel, an operations supervisor for Baker Hughes. They each have one daughter, Olivia and Amber, who each has one son, their grandsons, Jayden 6, and Bryce, 5. They enjoy spending time with family, riding their Harley Davidson, travelling, hunting and fishing, target practice, gardening and yard work. Lisa enjoys making mosaic crafts and photography as well as collecting several different things such as perfume bottles, vintage beaded purses, teddy bears and anything with roses on it. Upon retirement they plan on moving to the family cattle farm near La Grange to live the good life.

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