Thayne LaBanta and Derick Banta
Thayne LaBanta, 11 October 1904 - 15 July 2000, was a Real Son of a Civil War veteran. He was the son of Derick Dean Banta who served as a Private in the 76th Regiment Illinois Volunteers, Company F, from 1862 to 1865. Thayne became a member of the Austin Blair Camp No. 7, SUVCW, Jackson, Michigan on 5 April 1929 and until his death at the age of 95 in July 2000, he continued to actively participate in all Camp projects, the most recent being the restoration of Civil War veteran's grave sites in Jackson County. He held the position of Camp Commander on three occasions and in 1946 was Commander of the Department of Michigan, SUVCW.
Thayne LaBanta and Derick Banta
Derick Dean Banta was born a son of Quaker parents and served in the Union Army from 7 August 1862 to 6 March 1865. He enlisted at the age of 18 at Kankakee, Illinois and served as a Private in Company F of the 76th Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, until the end of the war. After the war he became a chemist and opened a shop in the Palmer House in Chicago, but lost everything in the fire of 1871. In 1877 he changed his name to Dean LaBanta and wrote a publication titled "De La Banta's Advice To Ladies", a 380-page guide book on lady's etiquette. In 1887 he moved to New York and formed a militia of over 1200 men which was called the First Regiment of New York, an Independent Self-sustained Militia of Temperance Men. In 1896 he married 27 year old Ida Florence Chamberlain. Their first child Dean was born in 1897. ( Dean was a charter member of Austin Blair Camp No. 7 and died of wounds from a sniper in the final days of World War I ). In 1899 the LaBanta family moved to Jackson, Michigan, where Derick became a member of the Edward Pomeroy, Grand Army of the Republic Post 48. Derick was 60 when their fourth child, Thayne, was born.