Donald A. Davis

Donald Arthur Davis was born on December 27, 1914 (93 ½ years ago)in Lincoln Park, Michigan. His father, Edward Glenwood, was a men’s store owner whose store was on Fort Street. His mother, Ida Elsie , was as the papers described her, “a social matron.” His mother died in 1929 and his father in 1944. He had two younger brothers, Kenneth and Douglas, who both live in Florida.

He, like so many, enjoyed the time after WWI. Many summer days were spent with his aunts and cousins in the country around Holly. He went to the school in Lincoln Park and graduated from Lincoln Park High School although he spent two enjoyable years at the Kentucky Military Academy.

The ‘30s were harder but he found a job that he was to retire from. He was a successful route salesman for Domestic Linen Supply in Detroit. That career, however, was interrupted by WWII.

He enlisted in the Army in 1941, before Pearl Harbor, and the Army soon saw in him potential and sent him to Officer’s Candidate School. He was assigned to the 95th Infantry Division. His battalion, the 379th , landed in Normandy, France in August of 1944. Serving under General George S. Patton, they liberated Metz and Bastogne. He was awarded the Bronze Star and had been order to participate in the invasion of Japan. He was discharged as a Captain in 1945 following the end of the war.

While in Detroit on leave in 1944 he met and married Marjorie Flemming from Illinois. They had two children, Donald Arthur and Jan Denise, four grandchildren, Erin, Trevor, Ashley and Casey and one great-grandchild Kaija.

He and Marjorie divorced in 1974, he retired from Domestic Linen in 1975 and began a very busy 33 year retirement. He was fortunate to have Dorothy Reid, a dear family friend of 58 years, and her family Sharon and Michael. He will be missed by them as family.

He built his house on Larme Street in 1949 and lived in it until he left on June 3 of this year. Until his death, his fervent wish was to return, due in no small part to his neighbors—not those who bought and built in the neighborhood with him, but the next generation. He was a friend to all, particularly Joan and Jim Ursing, his next door neighbors who continued to befriend him even after they moved.

In late May his life changed. He was taken to Oakwood Hospital and found that some of his unrelenting discomfort was caused by an “old” gall bladder and liver cancer. After surviving a major heart attack and bypass surgery in the spring of 2001, he decided on one more operation, and his gall bladder was successfully removed. He was making good progress in rehab until the early morning on July 3 when he suffered a massive stroke and died 19 days later on July 22 with Dorothy and Sharon at his side.

He will be buried in Roseland Cemetery in Berkley (near Detroit) with is mother and father.

He will be greatly missed but, as a poet said, “Do not stand at my grave and weep….”

“Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation, for they are us—our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.”

Albert Einstein.

Visitation Thursday 6 - 8 pm. Funeral Service Friday 11 am at the Funeral Home.