BIOGRAPHIES

Get to know the family.

July 30, 1914 - september 30, 1993

J.W. Maxcey was the second son of Hervey Maxcey and Roberta Skelton. By 1941 he had done everything you could imagine: he graduated from John Tarleton University, was a farmer, typist, history teacher, semi-pro basketball player, and oil rig roughneck. That's when he was drafted into the army. Though draftees were not considered Non-Commissioned Officer material, J.W. was made a Sergeant in the 2nd Infantry Division and served in the Second World War. Upon his return, with another stripe on his shoulder, he joined his father-in-law Dewey David "D.D." Danner's Security Guard service in the Port of Houston. J. W. loved to hunt, fish, and take his children Mac and Jim on vacation. He was a stern father, but loved his family completely, and intensely loved his six grandsons. J. W. married his history student, Johnnie Pauline "Polly" Danner, when she was just 14 in 1934. The two were inseparable, going on vacations, their family deer ranges in Lazy River, Madrona, Seven Oaks, and Montana Rock. J. W. was as cantankerous as Polly was feminine, and always loved a good laugh, to tell outrageous stories, and to watch John Wayne movies endlessly. I once asked him how he made it to seventy. "I went to bed early," he told me, "didn't drink that much, and always shot first."

December 26, 1920 - february 26, 2006

If ever there was a family matriarch, it was Munny. Unbelievably kind, unconditionally loving, and always forgiving, Granny Maxcey always supported and encouraged everyone to go further and be better. The daughter of Dewey David "D.D." Danner and "Momma Mearle" Rowlett, Granny saw her parents marry twice...and divorce twice. Through the Great Depression and the Second World War, she spent time first with her father in Brownwood, then Houston, where she went to school at Stonewall Jackson Middle School. She married her seventh grade history teacher, bore him three children, watched one die of pneumonia, and led an unapologetic life. She stood by her husbands's side, was a den mother in her two boy's Boy Scout group, and constantly coddled them some would say too much. Munny was patient, conservative, but assertive in what she thought her family needed: a warm blanket, a hot meal, milk over ice, gold bond powder, and unconditional love. "One of the things I loved about Aunt Polly was how feminine she was," my cousin Jill Landon once told me. "The way she did her hair, wore her clothes, even how she walked. She was the essence of femininity." This about woman who helped me push a red Willys Jeep up a hill in her night gown. 

June 23, 1966 - July 28, 2019

John Maxcey was born in San Antonio, Texas. He was raised in Helotes and moved with his family to Houston, first in the Sagemont subdivision and then to Green Tee in Pearland around the Golf Crest Country Club. He graduated from Clear Creek High School in 1984 and attended Southwest Texas State University (at the time, SWT, now Texas State) in San Marcos, Texas. John pledged and was later President of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity, an organization in which he made life long friends. He moved back to Houston in 1989 and began working for his father Mac’s freight brokerage firm Houston Freight Distribution Services, Inc. (HFDSI). John worked for the Maxcey family’s Danner’s Maritime Services to finish his business degree, which he completed in 1995. Using a ten year old PC his father bought in 1984, John started his own Freight brokerage firm in his Clear Lake apartment and named it MacWorth Transportation after his father and grandfather. In time, MacWorth grew to several employees and was larger than HFDSI. He was a member of the Freight Broker’s Association of America (FBAA) and hired his mother Margaret as a logistics broker. John loved fishing and the outdoors, never passing a Buccee’s on the way to his next opportunity with nature. He enjoyed his friends and loved his family. There was never a moment when you found a more generous smile or a more heartwarming hug from him. Whether you were his family, friend, or merely an acquaintance, there will always be a memory to bring back his smile.