William E. “Bill” Davidson at his 100th birthday celebration.
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Copyright © 2008 Donald G. Davidson
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 1-4392-1614-2
ISBN-13: 9781439216149
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READER NOTE: This website was created largely to allow the Davidson Family Heritage to be tranferred to future generations. The experiences and qualities that my grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins instilled in me will be passed on to future generations, and I did not want the future generations to miss some of the great stories and experiences that have molded and shaped them, thus a website that allows each of us to contribute was the best way to guarantee this. My uncle Don’s incredible toil of a book is the foundation of the site (which without Aunt Pat’s patience, persistence, and assistance) would not have happened), but each family will have an opportunity to add their own stories, pictures, videos, and experiences to each section. Thus, it’s up to you, future generations to keep this growing.
Have fun! Steve Davidson 2010
To contact me: steve.davidson@cynergysoftware.com
William E. “Bill” Davidson Family
The Life and Times of a Centenarian and His Family
Donald G. Davidson
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My many thanks go to several people who without their contributions I would never have been able to write this book. Betty Ramey, John Wallace Davidson’s great granddaughter, provided information she had researched and collected over the years about our early family history. My Dad for his many and varied accounts and stories of his life. My Mom for leaving her writings about herself and her ancestors. My brothers, Bill and Sam, for taking the time to relate their experiences to me, and Sam’s wife, Rowena, for providing written accounts of their lives. My brother Bob’s children, Steve and Paula, for providing written accounts of Bob’s life experiences. My sister, Ann, for providing written accounts of her life experiences some of which were narratives written by her husband, Fred. I am also grateful to Ann for proof reading my manuscript and making many suggestions most of which are incorporated herein. I’m also grateful to my cousin, Rose Edna French for providing the Clarke Family information, and to an Internet friend, Mary Stuart, for providing the Wainwright Family information. And, finally my wife, Pat, for being tolerant and supportive of my endeavor to write this book.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix
Chapter 1 – The Ancient Davidson History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Chapter 2 – The Early Davidson History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
James Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
George Washington. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Old John Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
John Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Lucinda “Lucy” Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
John Davidson and Mary Wallace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Chapter 3 – John Wallace Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Chapter 4 – William Mordecai Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
Chapter 5 – Samuel Mordecai Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
Chapter 6 – Meta Pauline Clarke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Chapter 7 – William Edmund Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67
Chapter 8 – Mary Pauline Roller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
A Roller/Jones Family History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Chapter 9 – Cornelous Coats “Trick” Jones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Chapter 10 – William Lee Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215
Chapter 11 – Robert Joe Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Chapter 12 – Donald Gene Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
The Childhood Years
Chapter 13 – Donald Gene Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .331
The Army and College Years
Chapter 14 – Donald Gene Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
The Growth Years
Chapter 15 – Donald Gene Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .457
The Mellow Years
Chapter 16 – Donald Gene Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
The Retirement Years
Chapter 17 – Ann Luvida Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Chapter 18 – Samuel Marvin Davidson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539
Appendix 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
William Edmund “Bill” Davidson Family Lineage – 2007
Appendix 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
Meta Pauline Clarke’s Journal
Farina, Illinois To Hardy, Arkansas
Appendix 3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
Poems By William E. “Bill” Davidson
Appendix 4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
William E. “Bill” Davidson’s Final Days
Excerpts From Don’s Diary
Appendix 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .617
Clarke Eleven Generations Chart
Appendix 6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621
Roller Six Generations Chart
Appendix 7. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625
Excerpts From Henry Harrison Roller Letters
Appendix 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629
Roller Ancestors
Appendix 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
Debt of Thanks
INTRODUCTION
I have been interested in family genealogy and history for years. My interest was first piqued the summer of 1953 when I stayed with my Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim Dunahoo and Grandma and Grandpa Davidson in Kansas City. Grandpa was dying with cancer and needed close care. I worked nights so I could be with Grandma and Grandpa during the day while Jim and Mary were at work.
During those many hours I spent with Grandpa he talked a lot about many things including the family. He knew he was dying more than I realized. I listened to his many rambling reminiscences of family and events in his life, but I did not pay close attention or make notes.
Grandpa died that summer in August at age eighty. After the funeral I returned to school at Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater, Oklahoma. I busied myself with my studies, but haunting questions kept surfacing especially in my spare moments of relaxation and reflection. I tried to remember the details of Grandpa’s stories, but mostly to no avail. From time to time I began to jot down what I could remember. I began to realize I knew very little about my ancestors. I also soon learned my siblings and cousins knew even less than I did.
After a while I began to ask questions of my other grandparents, my parents, my aunts, and my uncles. I bought a good reel-to-reel tape recorder. It was a lot of money for the day. The technology was primitive compared with today’s technology. It was portable but very bulky and heavy weighing about forty-five pounds. I made a few tape recordings of interviews with various family members, but recording tapes were costly. I had very little money. The recorder was so bulky and heavy it was difficult to set up for a proper interview, and I wasn’t very experienced as an interviewer. I still have some of the tapes which, if possible, I intend to convert some day to a more modern medium such as compact disk.
Years later after mother died I bought a video camcorder. I felt the same loss of family history as I did when Grandpa Davidson died. I flew to Phoenix and spent several days with Aunt Marge, mother’s next younger sister, and video taped interviews with her. I later made videotapes of some of the Jones Family Reunions, and some really neat videos of Aunt Jewel, another of mother’s sisters.
In the meantime I also got into family genealogy and attended several seminars. My initial approach was to just record pertinent genealogical information. I began to collect old letters, scraps of diaries, old newspaper clippings, old documents, etc. I attended Jones and Clarke Family Reunions and made notes. I accumulated a large amount of unorganized material and information.
About ten years ago I began to correspond with Betty Ramey, Dad’s first cousin in California. Betty worked on Davidson history and genealogy for many years. She and I collaborated on the compilation of a John Wallace Davidson genealogical and history profile which was put in loose-leaf notebooks and sent to the genealogy libraries in Camden, Tennessee, and Hardy, Arkansas.
When Dad turned a hundred years of age, my wife, Pat, and I with help from my brother, Sam, and his wife, Rowena, organized and threw one fine party for him. To honor the occasion I did a history on Dad’s life with a few old photographs. I gave copies to Dad, each of his five children, and to his grandchildren that attended the evening family dinner.
There came a time a few years ago when I said that if I ever intended to organize and present this information in a readable form for posterity I had better get off the dime and do it because I was beginning to see my own mortality looming on the distant horizon. Thus, began my effort to write this book.
There are two characteristics I have that need to be told before going forth with this effort to give a better insight and understanding into my psychic and reasons for this undertaking.
First, I have always been a vivid dreamer. Even as a child I had vivid dreams. I remember that sometimes I had bad dreams, but don’t remember ever having horrible nightmares like some children. I usually dream in great detail. Other times my dreams are vague. I almost always dream in full color unless it is twilight, dusk or darkness. The grass is green, the water in the lake is blue, the rose in the garden is red. Sometimes it is twilight or night time in my dreams and the colors are either muted or tones of gray. I was thirty years old before I learned most people do not dream in color. I was astonished. What a shame!
Second, I have a good memory of actual events in my life. My earliest remembrance is when I was about three years old. I remember many events before I was six years old as well as numerous other events later in life.
My very earliest memory was February 1932 when I was three years and two months of age. I was staying with my Grandmother and Grandfather Roller. They lived on a farm along the banks of Panther Creek at the foot of The Table Hills in western Garvin County in Oklahoma. I remember the event but not the specific date. I remember the date only because years later my grandmother told me. I spent a lot of my childhood summers with my grandparents where I roamed the banks of Panther Creek and the breaks of The Table Hills.
I don’t remember recent events quite so well. I remember things like the family phone number (5-5913) when I was five years old, or the phone number (WI3-3664) when I was a teenager. I remember the phone number (430-0146) when my wife and I lived years later at Bartonville, Texas. I’m not as good with names and faces as with events. I remember names and faces but sometimes have trouble getting the right name to the right face. I remember the names of almost all my teachers from kindergarten through college.
I remember family occasions and other events throughout my life. I usually remember these with a great deal of detail. My brothers and sister think I’m a little weird, but they sometimes call me when they want to know who was where and when and doing what.
Well into adulthood I developed a keen interest in history and family genealogy. I am the self-appointed family historian and over the years have accumulated considerable information about our family. I finally decided to organize it and put it in a book.
I asked each of my siblings to write whatever they would like for me to include in a chapter on them. I never realized how difficult it would be to beg, plead, and cajole to get them to provide enough information to give a reasonable account of their lives. But, I finally prevailed after many long phone conversations, exchanges of correspondence, and written descriptive accounts of events.
This history is as comprehensive and inclusive as I could make it within reasonable time constraints and limited resources. I’ve worked on it off and on the past twenty years. There came a time when I had to say this is it and wrap it up. I’ve tried to be as factual and accurate as possible with several plausible scenarios about our early ancestry.
I know for certain that John Wallace Davidson is our ancestor. I am certain John and Mary Wallace Davidson are his parents. However, it is not known for certain who John’s parents or Mary’s parents are. There seems to be a likely Davidson sire lurking at every twist and turn in the genealogical forest. Therein lies the great mystery and much speculation.
This is a work of genealogy as well as family history. I don’t expect most people will read this book from cover to cover. They will probably read only the parts that interest them the most. There are instances where the reader will find duplications of certain events that are described from the perspective of several different people. Also, some of the genealogical data will appear repeated in the various family descriptions.
What is lacking in professionalism is compensated by spirit. This has been a labor of love. I hope you and others enjoy reading about my family, The William E. “Bill” Davidson Family.
Donald G. Davidson
2008
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