Waller was born in Shreveport to Dayton Waller, Sr., a native of Haynesville in Claiborne Parish in North Louisiana, and his wife, the former Elisabeth Lane, the fourth of five children of Shreveport industrialist Charles W. Lane, Sr., and the former Addie Noel. Charles Lane, the grandfather of Dayton Waller, Jr., was orphaned at thirteen. Self-educated, he became the owner of the Giddens-Lane Company, a bank director, an appointee of the Caddo Levee Board, and later established the Charles W. Lane Company. The Lane Company is engaged in the management of commercial real estate development, agricultural lands, and petroleum and natural gas holdings. For years the firm was managed by E. Alton Sartor, Jr., another grandson of Charles W. Lane and hence a cousin of Dayton Waller, Jr. Sartor's wife, Jean Oliver Sartor, was an artist in Shreveport. Dayton Waller, Sr., the son of Shadrack Columbus Waller and the former Mary L. Dawson, was a director of the C. W. Lane Company. The senior Waller was a United States Navy veteran of World War I, a Shriner, and a member of the American Legion and the First Baptist Church of Shreveport. After the death of his first wife, Elisabeth, he married the former Blanche Hagan, a native of Dry Prong in Grant Parish, by whom he had a second son, the half-brother of Dayton Waller, Jr. Dayton, Sr., Elisabeth, and Blanche Waller are interred at Forest Park East Cemetery in Shreveport. Waller left C. E. Byrd High School in his senior year to enlist in the United States Army, in which he was a military policeman. Upon his return to civilian life, he received his high school diploma. In 1947, he graduated from Methodist-affiliated Centenary College in Shreveport. At six feet, six inches in height and affectionately known as "Treetop", Waller played basketball for the Centenary Gentlemen. He was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order. Waller was a member of the board of the C. W. Lane and the Giddens-Lane companies. He owned and operated a crop dusting firm, the Dixie Dusting Company. He raised cattle, corn, and cotton on Halifax Plantation in Natchitoches Parish. He served on the board of Pioneer Bank and Trust Company. When he retired from farming, he opened the Evangeline Restaurant in Shreveport. He was affiliated with many community organizations, such as the Shreveport, the Cotillion Club, and the Plantation club, and the Ark-La-Tex Gun Collector's Association. He was a member of the National Rifle Association, the National World War II Museum, the American Legion and the Forty and Eight veterans organization.
Political career
Waller ran successfully for the state House of Representatives in the 1967–1968 election cycle, when Democrats swept the Caddo Parish offices. He served in the House during the second administration of GovernorJohn McKeithen. Voted out was the Republican Representative Taylor W. O'Hearn of Shreveport, who had served the preceding four-year term from 1964 to 1968. A second Republican representative Morley A. Hudson did not seek a second term in 1968. When Waller left the House in 1972, two other Republicans were elected in single-member districts in Caddo Parish, B. F. O'Neal, Jr., and Art Sour. Waller was a member of the Caddo Parish Levee Board under Governors Jimmie Davis, John McKeithen, and David C. Treen.
Personal life
In 1947, Waller married the former Fern Reynolds, a native of Pleasant Hill in Sabine Parish and the daughter of Wendell E. and Flossie P. Reynolds. Like her husband, Fern Waller was a graduate of Byrd High School and Centenary College, from which she majored in fashion apparel and marketing. Mrs. Waller and her friend, Marilee Harter, owned a Shreveport apparel store, Hart-Wall I & II, later Fern Waller's, Inc. She developed menus for her husband's former restaurant, "The Evangeline". The Wallers donated the bridal suite of the First Baptist Church of Shreveport in appreciation to God for their four children, Dayton H. Waller, III, Elizabeth "Sissy" Waller Johnson, Elaine Waller Moreau, and Kathryn Waller Long. Waller died at the age of ninety at his home in Shreveport on May 26, 2015.
