Mamie Ada Johnson Davis
b 1902

Archives of Fred Gerard Davis.
Excerpt from  - "The Davis Story" prepared by Dock Davis, Sr.’s son, Fred G. Davis and his wife Barbara Ann Sellars Davis in 1998.

Dock Davis, Sr. married Mamie Ada Johnson in 1922. Mamie was born in the Liberty Community of Washington County, TN on April 22, 1902. Her father was William Moore Johnson and her mother was Margaret Melinda "Maggie" Mauck. She had a cousin named Agnes Tittle in Embreville. Mamie had a brother named Jim and one named Henry. Her sisters were Lizzie Johnson Skelding, Eva Johnson & she married  James V. Johnson, yes, Johnson - Johnson.

Mamie’s family managed a hotel in Embreville owned by the people who owned the iron mine there. (This hotel is now Chucky Trading Company.)  Mamie got a job at Southern Pottery in Erwin. Dock’s store was one city block away from the Pottery. In 1922 they were married. Mamie was 20 years old then. Along about that time Dock’s store burned. He rebuilt it, but in 1929 the Stock Market crashed and the ensuing depression caused many people to be unable to pay their debts. We do not know at this time but see the possibility that the depression could have been the reason he lost his business. The old ledgers show so many people who didn’t ever pay what they owed him.

Their first child was Patrick Henry Davis, born 1923 (June 13), then Kathryn Edna, Dock, Jr., Fred (Gerard given legally to himself in the Air Force as a middle name), Ruth was their last child. Pat, as he was called, was never married. He went into the Army in the British 8^th Air Force when London was being bombed by Hitler early in WWII and was in Germany when the Allies occupied it in 1945. He came back to Fort Benjamin Harrison where he was discharged. He came home to live and did carpenter work and hung wallpaper and other odd jobs. He reenlisted in the Army around 1947. During that enlistment he had developed a thyroid goiter. He was sent to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver or Aurora, Colorado where it was removed. He was returned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina in Ordinance. He got a brief leave, maybe a week-end pass to come home for his birthday, June 13, in 1948. He had written his mother, Mamie, that he would take a bus to Forest City, NC then to go Bostic yards and there he would take an early morning passenger train to Erwin. This trip was one day before his 25^th birthday. At Bostic Yards was what was called a “yard shack” where he waited for the train. He died there beneath the wheels of the train .Before noon that day while Fred was with friends at  Fishery Community seining minnows from North Indian Creek, another friend and neighbor, Virgil Copp came to him and told him that Pat had been killed. After that Fred got back home where he learned that the Sheriff’s office had notified them of Pat’s death. The Army had taken his body back to Fort Bragg and placed it in a coffin and covered it with a cream colored plastic. The train wheels had cut him into across the chest and severed his left arm above the left elbow, so he could not be embalmed. To the best of his recollection, Fred says he believes Pat was brought home the following Monday. He was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Erwin, TN the following Wednesday. His funeral was at Calvary Baptist Church.