David Snell (journalist)
Encyclopedia
David Snell was a reporter and cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

 for the defunct Life Magazine
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

and several other publications during his career as a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

.

Early years, family, education

David Snell (no middle name) was born in Minden
Minden, Louisiana
Minden is a city in the American state of Louisiana. It serves as the parish seat of Webster Parish and is located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish. The population, which has been stable since 1960, was 13,027 at the 2000 census...

, the seat of Webster Parish
Webster Parish, Louisiana
Webster Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The seat of the parish is Minden. In 2010, its population was 41,207....

 in northwestern Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, to John Barnard Snell (1884–1959) and the former Ada Jack Carver
Ada Jack Carver Snell
Ada Jack Carver Snell was an American short story writer originally from the historic city of Natchitoches, Louisiana.-Background:...

 (1890–1972). J.B. Snell was the principal of Minden High School
Minden High School (Minden, Louisiana)
Minden High School is the public secondary educational institution in Minden, a small city of 13,000 and the seat of Webster Parish located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport in northwestern Louisiana...

 from 1913–1917, when he left to join the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. On his return to Minden, the senior Snell operated his own cotton gin
Cotton gin
A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, a job formerly performed painstakingly by hand...

.

Ada Snell was born in Natchitoches
Natchitoches, Louisiana
Natchitoches is a city in and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the Natchitoches Indian tribe. The City of Natchitoches was first incorporated on February...

, Louisiana, to Marshall H. Carver and the former Ada W. Jack. She graduated from Judson College
Judson College (Alabama)
Judson College, originally named Judson Female Institute, was founded by members of the Siloam Baptist Church in 1838 in Marion, Alabama. It is the fifth oldest women's college in the United States. It was named after Ann Hasseltine Judson, the first female foreign missionary from the United States...

 in Marion
Marion, Alabama
Marion is the county seat of Perry County, Alabama. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city is 3,511. First called Muckle Ridge, the city was renamed after a hero of the American Revolution, Francis Marion.-Geography:...

, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, and became an author of short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

, most with a Louisiana setting, particularly the Cane River
Cane River
Cane River is a lake and river formed from a portion of the Red River that is located in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it has been best known as the site of a historic Creole de couleur culture that has centers upon the National Historic Landmark Melrose...

 country of Natchitoches Parish
Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana
Natchitoches Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Natchitoches. As of 2000, the population was 39,080. This is the heart of the Cane River Louisiana Creole community...

. Her writings include "The Joyous Coast" (1917), "The Cajun" (1926), "Bagatelle" (1927), and "The Clock Strikes Tomorrow" (1935). Ada was an occasional guest at Cammie G. Henry’s Melrose Plantation
Melrose Plantation
Melrose Plantation, also known as Yucca Plantation, is a National Historic Landmark in Natchitoches Parish in north central Louisiana. This is one of the largest plantations in the United States built by and for free blacks...

 in Natchitoches Parish, where she met the Louisiana author Lyle Saxon
Lyle Saxon
Lyle Saxon was a respected New Orleans writer, and journalist who reported for The Times-Picayune.-Life:He was born in Bellingham, Washington. He lived in the French Quarter; Sherwood Anderson, William Faulkner, Roark Bradford, and Edmund Wilson visited.He was an ardent student of the history of...

. John and Ada married in Shreveport
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....

, Louisiana. Their first child, John Hampton Snell, died in a household accident shortly before what would have been his second birthday in 1921, only two days before David’s birth.

In 1939, Snell graduated from Minden High School. He thereafter planned to study medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 at Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...

, where he procured a commission in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 Medical Corps Reserves. He was a member of Phi Chi
Phi Chi
Phi Chi is one of the oldest and largest international medical fraternities of its kind in the world. Phi Chi evolved from the merging of two professional medical fraternities bearing the same name. Phi Chi Society was founded on March 31, 1889, at the University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt...

 and the Sigma Nu
Sigma Nu
Sigma Nu is an undergraduate, college fraternity with chapters in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Sigma Nu was founded in 1869 by three cadets at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia...

 fraternity
Fraternity
A fraternity is a brotherhood, though the term usually connotes a distinct or formal organization. An organization referred to as a fraternity may be a:*Secret society*Chivalric order*Benefit society*Friendly society*Social club*Trade union...

.

Journalism career

After he was stricken with scarlet fever
Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever is a disease caused by exotoxin released by Streptococcus pyogenes. Once a major cause of death, it is now effectively treated with antibiotics...

, Snell left medical school and devoted his pursuits to journalism, becoming a reporter for the Atlanta Constitution (since Atlanta Journal-Constitution) in Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

. He was later in charge of the Constitution's News Bureau at Marietta before entering the Army in 1945.

During his military service, Snell filed a number of stories to the Constitution while training in the US and also after arriving in Korea with occupation forces. In Korea, Snell was assigned to the 24th Criminal Investigation Detachment, which investigated crimes against the United States.

One of his stories from Korea is based on an interview with Bishop Arthur J. Moore of Atlanta, who had visited China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 and Japan in an effort to survey conditions regarding the return of missionaries
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 into those countries after the cessation of hostilities. While assigned to the 24th Criminal Investigation Detachment, Snell penned a controversial and unsubstantiated story alleging Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

's successful test of an atomic bomb prior to the American bombings of Nagasaki
Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...

 and Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...

. On August 29, 1945, a B-29 called the Hog Wild was fired upon by Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 Yak-3 fighters. Snell's Atlanta Constitution article speculates that the plane was forced down to prevent its crew from spotting a Japanese atomic bomb facility in what is now Hŭngnam
Hungnam
Hŭngnam was the third largest city in North Korea.It is a port city on the eastern coast, in South Hamgyong Province, on the Sea of Japan . The city covers an area of 250 square kilometers...

, now the third largest city in North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

. His discovery of the atom bomb story had been outside his official line of duty and was not any part of his official assignment.

In 1967, Snell reviewed the Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...

-Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...

 film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde (film)
The film was originally offered to François Truffaut, the best-known director of the New Wave movement, who made contributions to the script. He passed on the project to make Fahrenheit 451. The producers approached Jean-Luc Godard next...

. In 1934, when David was barely thirteen, the senior Snell had taken him to the location in Bienville Parish
Bienville Parish, Louisiana
Bienville Parish is a parish located in the northwestern portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Arcadia and as of the 2000 census, the population is 15,752....

 where law enforcement officials, including Sheriff
Sheriff
A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

 Henderson Jordan
Henderson Jordan (Louisiana sheriff)
Henderson Jordan , as sheriff of Bienville Parish in north Louisiana, was one of six law enforcement officers who on May 23, 1934, ambushed the fugitives Bonnie and Clyde in a deadly encounter on Louisiana Highway 154 between Gibsland and Sailes to the south.-Background:According to his grave...

, had ambushed the fugitives after a regional chase which attracted national headlines.

That same year Snell received national attention for the Life article "How It Feels to Die" based on a personal near-death experience.

In addition to his tenure with Life, which ended with the magazine’s first closing in December 1972, Snell wrote articles for The Smithsonian
Smithsonian (magazine)
Smithsonian is the official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The first issue was published in 1970.-History:...

and The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

. In the February 1972, edition of The Smithsonian, he published “The Green World of Carrie Dormon”, a reference to Caroline Dormon
Caroline Dormon
Caroline Coroneos Dormon was a botanist, horticulturist, ornithologist, historian, archeologist, preservationist, naturalist, conservationist, and author from Louisiana. She was born in modest circumstances at Briarwood, the family home in northern Natchitoches Parish, to James L. Dormon and the...

, the naturalist
Naturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...

 from Natchitoches and Bienville parishes who pushed for the development of Kisatchie National Forest
Kisatchie National Forest
Kisatchie National Forest, the only National forest in Louisiana, USA, is located in the state's old growth piney hills and hardwood bottoms of seven central and northern parishes. It totals more than of public lands....

.

Family breakup

While with the Constitution, Snell lived in Marietta
Marietta, Georgia
Marietta is a city located in central Cobb County, Georgia, United States, and is its county seat.As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 56,579, making it one of metro Atlanta's largest suburbs...

, Georgia, with his first wife, the former Julia Williams, later Julia Black (died 2004), originally from Augusta
Augusta, Arkansas
Augusta is a city in Woodruff County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 2,693 at the 2000 census. The city is the county seat of Woodruff County.-Geography:Augusta is located at ....

 in Woodruff County, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

. The couple had two sons, Barry Snell (born January 3, 1945), an attorney, and Jan Whitfield Snell (born 1948), a businessman, both of San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...

, Texas. Julia met Snell at LSU. She became a Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 performer in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, having studied music at LSU and then at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

.

In 1947, the Snells moved to New York and lived in a neighborhood in the Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....

 borough, as Snell took a position with the since defunct New York World-Telegram
New York World-Telegram
The New York World-Telegram, later known as the New York World-Telegram and Sun, was a New York City newspaper from 1931 to 1966.-History:...

. During this time, he did cartoons regarding the Army-McCarthy hearings
Army-McCarthy Hearings
The Army–McCarthy hearings were a series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations between April 1954 and June 1954. The hearings were held for the purpose of investigating conflicting accusations between the United States Army and Senator Joseph McCarthy...

. He then left the ‘’World-Telegram’’ for Life.

After a bitter divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

, Snell was estranged from his sons for the remainder of his life. Barry Snell recalls not having been notified at the time of his father's death. In 1957, the Minden Herald and Webster Review reported that Snell was the head of the Paris Bureau for Life. The paper said that Snell had come to Minden to visit his parents but that his wife (unnamed second spouse) remained behind in Paris.

A physically large man who did some professional wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...

, Snell was already balding and bespectacled while he was in his early thirties. Snell and his second wife, the former Dixie Oliver (born October 1, 1923), had two sons, Mark Snell and wife Minori H. Snell, and Steven M. Snell. Dixie was a food writer at the time the two married.

Snell’s legacy

The Snells were residing in Houston
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...

 at the time of his death in 1987 at the age of sixty-six. The Houston Post did not carry an article about his death or a regular notice in the obituary
Obituary
An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...

 section of the newspaper. Notice is found in a column by a former colleague, Charles Champlin, in the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

. Champlin described Snell as having “low-brow humor {which was} a masquerade for a sharp intelligence, a surprising amount of insecurity and more than his quota of private anxieties and sadness. After his magazine years and until his death, Snell was a successful and gifted free-lance writer, a gentle family man.”

J.B. and Ada Snell are interred at Minden Cemetery on the left side of the western entrance to the old section of graves. John Hampton Snell is interred in the same plot as his parents. David Snell and Julia Black were cremated
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....

. Dixie Snell still resides in Houston.

Of his journalism profession, Snell once quipped: "In this business, you either sink or swim or you don’t." Snell is among the Minden natives included in exhibits at the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum
Dorcheat Historical Association Museum
The Dorcheat Historical Association Museum is a preservation of 19th and 20th century north Louisiana history and culture located off U.S. Highway 80 in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. Highway 80, an early road linking the American South with the Pacific Coast, was...

, which opened in 2008.

Bill Streifer of Long Beach
Long Beach, New York
Long Beach is a city in Nassau County, New York. Just south of Long Island, it is located on Long Beach Barrier Island, which is the westernmost of the outer barrier islands off Long Island's South Shore. As of the United States 2010 Census, the city population was 33,275...

, New York, and Irek Sabitov of Ufa, the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia, are co-authoring the book, The Flight of the Hog Wild, which will offer detailed information on David Snell.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK