Uncle Bill Lane beats his wife and makes national headlines, 1941

Macon's only son, William Frank Lane ("Uncle Bill" to my mother), married Bertha "Bertie" Bailey sometime before he registered for the draft in September 1918. They lived at RFD 1, Hokes Bluff, Alabama. By 12 January 1920 the couple had moved to Panola County in east Texas. The only child Bonnie W. (a male) was 2 years old and was born in Alabama. They moved to Texas because "He had to leave because he stole a horse and got caught. He went to Texas," according to Sandra Morgan, daughter of Clarence Alford. At the time of the census on April 2, 1930, still in Panola County, they had four children. My mother named me after the second child, Travis Lane, born in September 1920.

Frank Lane divorced and remarried about 1934 and moved from his Texas farm to Los Angeles, though I don't know whether he was remarried in Texas or in California. Family stories say that he went to Hollywood to become a movie actor and was shot there by the son of his second wife. The links to the 1941 Los Angeles Times news stories just below confirm and amplify that story. Ausie White, I was told, saw the news story in Alabama in the national newspaper "Grit."
 Stepfather Shot, Aug 23, 1941  Boy, 15, Exonerated, Aug 27, 1941. from page 1 of the Los Angeles Times.
Frank Lane was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park at 1712 S. Glendale Avenue, Glendale, California, according to findagrave.com. It is a sister cemetery of Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills made famous by Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, and about seven miles east of it.

Bertha Lane remarried Evan Simpson in 1942 and lived in Beckville, Panola County, Texas. She died there 22 August 1955.

Tom Lane Murders Dr. John Morris in Piedmont, 1931

In Birmingham in 1910, Tom Lane, age 17, lived in the home of his brother John Quincey Lane and was a laborer at a foundry. Twenty-one years later at the age of 38 Thomas Lane killed a Doctor Morris at the doctor's farm outside Piedmont, Alabama by firing seven shots, five into the stomach. It was the summer of 1931. Piedmont newspaper reports say that the killer was dememted and had no motive. (See notes at his entry in the GED file.) The newspaper further stated he was a World War veteran.  He pleaded innocent by reason of insanity. He was convicted and imprisoned for life in Alabama, serving at Kilby and Atmore Prisons. A prison inquiry found him insane and he was transferred to the asylum at Tuscaloosa. The clippings from the Anniston Star spoke of the crime retrospectively, from years later, when, after three escapes, he surrendered himself to the sheriff of San Bernadino County, California due to suffering from tuberculosis, according to his Alabama Convict Record. Here are some 1949 and 1950 clippings from the Annistor Star.
Doctor's Killer Surrenders Self on West Coast (28 Nov 1949)(PDF)  
Lane Succumbs on West Coast (4 Jan 1950)(PDF)
Alabama, Convict Records, 1886-1952 Record for Thomas Lane

Dr. John David Morris was born Aug. 2, 1885. His death was on May 22, 1931. He was buried in Highland Cemetery, Piedmont, Alabama.He was married to Eugenia M. Formby (later Nichols) (1894-1976). The children included Gwendolyn Faye Morris (1916-), David Carlyle Morris (1918-1998), and Eugene Radford Morris (1924-1968). The latter two were buried in Notasulga, Alabama, in Lee and Macon Counties.