The GI Bill Creates Two Legal Careers

John Watts Barrett, Jr. - "A Bethlehem Boy Returns Home Seriously Wounded from the Battle of the Bulge"

After gradually recuperating from his war injuries, JWB  finished his studies at Lehigh University.  He was then accepted at Harvard Law School and, after three years, graduated and passed the PA Bar Exam.  He worked at several different prestigious Bethlehem law firms with lawyers such as Thomas Butterfield, William Joachim, William Brodt, and others.  One of the young associates in later years at that firm was another local boy, a young Irishman from Fountain Hill named Thomas Maloney.

The Danyi Family - "An Immigrant's Story"

The Danyi family men were all steelworkers, rising through the ranks until Frank J. Danyi, Sr. became a General Foreman at Bethlehem Steel.  In 1958, Frank J. Danyi, Jr., the great-grandson of a Hungarian immigrant who came through Ellis Island on the RMS Campania in 1904 with his wife, four young children, and $14.35 in his pocket to work in the mills of Bethlehem Steel, was the first member of his family to graduate not only from high school, but from Moravian College.

Danyi then joined the U.S. Army and was eventually commissioned as a lieutenant.  While in the Army at Fort McPherson, he was able to attend law classes at the very prestigious Emory Law School in Atlanta.  In 1961, Frank Danyi, Jr. and his wife Lillian had their first child, Kevin.  The family was transferred to Washington, D.C. and, after resigning his commission as a first lieutenant, Frank Danyi, Jr. took a job as a claims adjuster with the Aetna Insurance Company during the day, while taking classes at Catholic University of America at night, eventually receiving his law degree and passing both the Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. bar exams.

The Danyi family was transferred to Aetna headquarters in Hartford, Connecticut and Danyi was required to take the Connecticut bar exam.  Having had his fill of bar exams, Danyi decided to take the chance and return to his hometown of Bethlehem, where he started his own solo law practice.

Frank Danyi, Jr. eventually was hired by Jacob Kolb, Esq., of Kolb & Holland, and learned the practice of estate law from Mr. Kolb, one of the most respected estate lawyers of the time.   Practicing well into the 9th decade of his life, he had attained clients that included the top echelon executives of Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

Also at Bethlehem Steel at that time was an up-and-coming young lawyer named Br uce Davis. Davis was a West Virginia native but after working at a large law firm in Chicago, decided to go into corporate law.