M#6 DALLIE ARNOLD DAVISDonna's father, Dallie Arnold Davis, was born 12 March 1891 somewhere in Marion County, West Virginia, according to the county courthouse records, probably in or near Joetown outside of Mannington. His parents were Delphia Grooms Davis and James W. Davis of Mannington District, as reported by medical attendant G. L. McIntire of Grangeville.
As recorded at the county seat of Fairmont:
Birth Record No. 168
Date of Return April 3, 1891
Name: Dallie Arnold Davis
Sex: Male
No. of children of this mother: 1st
Period of Uterogestation: Full term
Color: White
Date of Birth: March 12, 1891
Place of Birth: Mannington District
Nationality & Place of Birth of Father:
American-Harrison County, WVa Age 23
Nationality & place of Birth of Mother:
American-Marion County, WVa Age 19
Mother's Name: Delphia Grooms Davis
Residence: Mannington District
Father's Name: Jas. Davis Occupation: Laborer
Name and Address of Medical Attendant: Person making certification and returned by: G. L. McIntire, Grangeville
Recorded in book 1A, page 152 & 153
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This is probably the first time this data has been formally set to paper since its first entry into the court record.
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Searching for Dallie's history was no easy matter. It required a great deal of ingenuity, energy, patience, and persistence. And time.
My original source of information on Dallie was a single paragraph in my brother's family treatise:
"When Grandmother Florida Gay returned to Elkins, she began courting Dallie Arnold Davis. Davis is a derivative of the Clan Davison in Scotland. His people arrived in western Virginia sometime in the early 1700's. Some of his relatives were involved in starting Elkins-Davis College in Elkins. Dallie Arnold Davis and Grandmother Florida Gay were married by Grandmother's brother-in-law Reverend John Slaughter at Warrington, West Virginia on April 2, 1910. This marriage was witnessed by Mrs. Rosa Slaughter, her sister, who we will hear more about later."
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Well, I had a date of marriage, and a location. Except there is no such place in West Virginia as Warrington.
By this time, my search was haunting the local census records depository. At about the same time I had also launched a letter writing campaign to the county seats in West Virginia.
In the census I found Gay living with sister Stella Poling and her husband Perry Poling in Elkins in 1910. And I found the Slaughter family in Marion County. I decided that Mannington, Marion County, must be "Warrington," as was later confirmed from Donna's school records.
Beginning in July of 1985 and on through September, I wrote to Marion, Randolph and Barbour Counties requesting a copy of Dallie's birth certificate, with no success. In December I wrote to Marion County Courthouse, giving Dallie and Gay's names and the date of their marriage in Mannington. I received back a marriage certificate indicating the entry in Record Book No. 12, page 249. I wrote back requesting a copy of the book entry page and it was sent. On this page, it was indicated that Dallie was indeed from Marion County.
I had also in the meantime sent off inquiries to Taylor, Randolph, and Harrison Counties looking for his birth registration with no success. Along the way, however, I somehow established a pen-pal relationship with one of the Marion County Clerk of court clerks who was inclined to go that extra step. In a third effort, a thorough search was made in the record books and the entry was found, in Book 1A on page 156. Finally, I received a copy of Dallie's birth certificate by March of 1986. In all, I made fourteen inquiries over a period of seventeen months seeking copies of his birth, marriage, and death certificates.
Now, after a year and a half of writing to West Virginia courthouses, and spending numerous hours in front of a census film viewer, I had Dallie's birth record, his marriage license application, knew where he was from, knew the date of his birth, and the names of his mother and father. And, where they were from!
I had learned from the census records that in 1910 Dallie was boarding with the Perry Poling family, and had probably met Gay there. Going back to 1900, I found him 'enumerated' with Lewis J. Grooms as his grandson. Grooms turned out to be his maternal grandfather, listed with wife Lodema, daughter Delphia, and son Daniel. Delphia was found in 1910 'enumerated' with James L. Grooms under the surname "Dvis," as a widow. So, I then knew Dallie's father was deceased by 1910.
I still didn't know where or when Dallie died or for that matter, what happened to him after he and Gay separated in 1915. I decided a trip to Marion County was in order and set about planning the first serious visit I had ever made to West Virginia.
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On Friday, 21 October, 1988 (Donna's 74th birthday had she lived past 32), I, wife Abbie, and my daughter Vickie were on the road at 6:00 A.M. heading south on Route 77 to West Virginia. We took I-77 south to I-70, east through Wheeling to I-79 in Pennsylvania, and on south into West Virginia, which took us directly to Fairmont. I do not recommend this route. By 10:30 A.M. we reached the courthouse. It was a day of mad rush because I wanted to research the Marion County Courthouse, jump down to Clarksburg in Harrison County, and have time for a drive out to Mannington, before beginning our 300-plus mile trip back to Cleveland.
At Fairmont, we learned that Dallie's Uncle Daniel E. Grooms had two daughters, Nellie and "Bellray" (Belvy). These offspring were found by sorting through the marriage applications for Grooms. We also found the death record entry for Grandmother Lodema Harvey Grooms, who was interred at Hawker's Cemetery. I found various other bits of family information, but no Delphia, no James Lewis, and no Dallie.
Our progress at Clarksburg looking for data on Dallie's father, James W. Davis and family produced little, and we were on our way out to Mannington by about 4:00 P.M., very tired and not knowing what we were looking for.
In Mannington I stopped at a grave monument sales office and was directed to the town's funeral home. There a director drew out a map to Hawker's Cemetery, but suggested I wanted to go there when we'd have more time and daylight, as the road at night was treacherous to newcomers. We stopped at City Hall to inquire about town records. We headed back to Cleveland, getting home at a weary 10:30 P.M. At least now, I knew there was a Nellie and a Belvy in the family.
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Within a few days of returning home, I wrote a letter to the mayor of Mannington, asking his assistance in pursuing my Mannington kin. His reply arrived on 31 October, referring me to the town historian, Reverend Arthur Prichard. I wrote the Reverend, and on 10 February 1989, I received his letter giving me the names, addresses, and phone numbers of Cousin Nellie Talkington and a distant cousin, Clarence Shaw, who had attended school with Dallie. Clarence was 93!
I called Nellie and we got acquainted. I wrote to Clarence, and he and I established a limited correspondence through his foster granddaughter.
I planned a second trip for 1989 and on Saturday, the first week in August, Abbie and I were on the road at 6:15 A.M. This time we took the Ohio Turnpike east to Pittsburgh and then I-79 south; a much faster and easier route.
Our first goal was to find Joetown, a community just outside Mannington, where Hawker's Cemetery was located. This is where Dallie and Gay were married in 1910. We got to Mannington, we found Joetown, and we found Hawker's Cemetery. And, we found Lodema Grooms' headstone-- placed there 82 years earlier. We also found Daniel and Cora Grooms' stone and then headed back to Mannington to meet my cousin Nellie Talkington.
When we got to Nellie's home, we surprisingly spent perhaps only an hour there, but I came away having borrowed the only photo of James Lewis Grooms and his family in existence.
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I have reason to believe Dallie Davis was an only child. I do know that he had several paternal uncles and at least one aunt. His father was older brother to Marshall, Ulysses, Lyvilia, Millard, Amos, and John Davis. There will no doubt turn up offspring of these kin.
I don't know how well educated Dallie was, but I know he had native intelligence. He was smart.
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"Dallie went to school with me ...I knew Delphia. I didn't have too much acquaintance with them. But Dallie, we went to school together. He was a little higher grade, a little older, I think. Yeah. Right smart. As far as I know, he got along good in school. One time, Russell Evans, Dallie Davis, I think one other, [Howard] Mason, went from the eighth grade, took the teacher's examination. One of them made number one, the other two made two's." "I think, I think part of them went on to teaching. No, I don't know whether [Dallie] taught. He left this community, he left soon after he went through school. I don't...lost trace..."
"I don't know whether they had went through second year, you know, they didn't have anything but the grades then. I don't know whether they had high school or not [up in Mannington]. I guess they did. [In school] there was two rooms. The lower room had the fourth grade. And the rest of them was the other. And sometimes the scholars that, well, they didn't 'miss out' completely, but were a little slow in their grades, [they] went the second time to the eighth grade. Teachers just let them come on. Teachers wasn't interested in them, anyhow..."
"[The teachers] there was Leslie Mills, was the main one, but there was several others that taught. Now, the lower grade, I don't remember who taught. There was a Mrs. Bates. She come from Morgantown. She taught one winter down here. And there was a woman, a lady taught, I think she taught two years, ahead of her. That Mrs. Bates was a smart lady. It would be...the early 1900's. I had a picture, oh, that's...well, I left it at mother's, and lost it. It was this school taken when I was about seven years old. It was up on top of the hill. There was forty scholars that year. And, when mother died, and my sister died unexpectedly, that time I never thought about getting that picture. I'd of loved to have it. I could years ago named about all of them. My time ain't worth much anymore. I'm thankful my mind stayed pretty good. You forget stuff that happened now, way back I can remember. Stuff that happened two, three days ago, I forget..."
"You know, we don't have any insurance over how long we're going to stay. I'm 93." (Clarence Shaw, July, 1989, Joetown, West Virginia)
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Twenty-one days after his nineteenth birthday, on a Saturday, 2 April, 1910, Dallie was married to 21-year old Florida Gay Ramsey by her brother-in-law, the Reverend John P. Slaughter. Gay's sister, Mrs. Rosa Jean Slaughter, then 16 years old, was in attendance.
Dallie and Gay had two children. Phillip Ronald Dallie Davis was born in Marion County on 26 March 1911. He died in Elkins, Randolph County on 14 December 1913, of pneumonia. His death is known to have greatly grieved his mother, the tough Taurean Florida Gay. One can only speculate the loss to little Phillip's Piscean father.
Donna Lenora was born on Wednesday, 21 October 1914, 11 months after her older brother's death.
Some time in 1915 -- exactly when is not known -- Gay and Dallie separated. Family tradition has it that Gay left Dallie because of his philandering tendencies. His personality profile allows for that potential.
Some time after the break up, presumably in her teen years, Donna is said to have written her father, that he came to visit her or she him. Apparently, Donna still had strong attachments to her father. According to the story, she wrote him a second time, but he didn't answer.
I don't know what kind of family man Dallie was. But I know he had attachments to his mother and her folks:
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"This picture [of Lewis Grooms remaining family, minus Delphia, but including Dallie's wife "Peg', all posed in Joetown] mother gave to me. Dallie took them pictures. And he sent them to mother [Cora], and dad, and they give me, ah...that's the one mother had...and the ones I had here, somebody stole them..." [Looking at a photo of baby Phillip R. D. Davis], "That's Ronald...if I'm told right, which I think I am. That's Dallie's boy. Always called him Ronald. Mother used to have a picture of him." [Seeing a picture of Dallie's first wife] -- "Gay. I never seen Gay, but I heard dad and mother talk about her...and Dallie."
"Sure, I heard of Clarence Shaw. You see, my mother and dad lived at Margaret. That's...two mile, or two and a half [from Clarence's place]."
"I don't remember anything about [Peg], I've only seen her just a few times. She was kind of an odd...she was a good woman, I think, but she was...awful...odd turn, someway or other. Like she was, she was 'way up yonder', you know? I don't care how much you got or anything about it. But you don't have to act too stuck up." (Nellie Grooms Talkington, cousin to Dallie Davis. July, 1989, Mannington, WV)
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Dallie Arnold Davis - 12 March, 1891
Pisces Sun-Aries Moon
"You have marked sensitiveness to impressions as they have a usefulness to you. You see issues according to your own prejudices. You are forming judgments of people and events continuously...
You have a natural reserve but exhibit a vitality of manner. You are more self sufficient than you appear, reaching forth from your private world and influencing people while you remain detached, proud and aloof.
You have tremendous self-respect, independence of spirit, a solidness and substantial aura that people trust.
You are affectionate, ardent in love, but touchy and easily offended. Somewhat quarrelsome with a chip on your shoulder--at least in manner. Temperamental in the real sense, and temperament, anger, bafflement and frustration make you nervous and rebound back on you so that you are more injured that your adversary. You need peace and calm.
You have an air of authority about you, which is confusing to less positive people, who are always relieved to know you aren't as unyielding as you appear.
You are sympathetic and understanding, and your bravado is a protective shield around a very sensitive core." (Grant Lewi, Heaven Knows What)
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According to Grant Lewi's Heaven Knows What, Dallie Davis' personality profile is quite similar to that of his grandson and namesake, Dallie A. Vernon, Sr., at least in its major assessments. Enough of the profile's minor points are similar, so as to give pause to reflect on these similarities, considering the difference of the times, the circumstances, and the lifestyles.
Dallie Davis has shared the same role of shamed malefactor, as have many of the males in this family, at least in the eyes of family members as has this author, his grandson. This author has been fortunate to have accessed enough family history to at least understand how the times and the attitudes of family and acquaintances can influence, for better or worse, an individual. And how prejudices of family can 'see' this orientation.
Dallie's Arian aggressive nature dealt with people better than his Piscean ideals and abstractions, and he had the Piscean magnetism that helped him in material things.
Like his namesake grandson, he had a sound and stable mentality, assurance against mental difficulties, to carry him through stress. Dallie had fixed opinions, but was not particularly stubborn, in fact, was capable of self-denial, until opposed. And then he was capable of bull-like stubbornness.
Like his grandson, he was of a studious bent, intellectual. His was not toward creativity, but toward perseverance.
Dallie Davis had a strong sense of his own worth and dignity. He had an inner drive and well-defined purpose. He was very independent among strangers, at his best away from his home of birth.
If Dallie had fault, it would stem from his relationship with his mother, who was widowed. There he would find his responsibilities as an only son would weigh him down, his obligations could keep him from the world. He could create his own opportunities, take advantage of the twists and turns of circumstances. He was steady, calm, persistent. He was also wary, suspicious and skeptical...capable of an austere life if that suited him. He developed a shrewd hardness with the years. Those years and his pride would also make him inflexible.
Dallie was also an emotional and passionate Pisces, resulting in turbulent experiences through love and sex -- discord and strangeness in his love life, adding to his self willed and independent nature; actually, a highly unconventional and stormy sex life. And an extravagance toward pleasure, dress, personal and domestic finery.
There was little prudery about Dallie. He was magnetic. He loved company and a good time -- a good deal of spice to his personality.
Finally, Dallie's emotional nature was marked, alternatively repressed and explosive, conventional and cold, independent and erratic, in his love life. He tended to the unconventional in love matters, making a fetish of independence. He had a certain austerity about him, was unyielding when it didn't suit his purposes to be yielding, at which time his detachment and objectivity amounted to cruelty. At other times, impulse and temperament made for erratic and unreliable behavior bordering on destructive impulses.
His personality profile doesn't show Dallie Davis to be anything other than a human being with human tendencies. What he was depended on who he was and his degree of self-understanding and discipline. No one in the extant family really knew him, only what has been said of him, and handed down. We have our prejudices just as those who cast aspersions on Dallie had theirs. Dallie Davis had his strengths and weaknesses just like the rest of us.
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"[You're] built a lot like Dallie was, ain't he, Lydie? When you sent us your picture with the high forehead, I said 'well, look at Dallie [Davis]' cause you remind me..." (Cousin Nellie Talkington, July 1989, Mannington,
(Author's note: The Federal census records for 1920 were released by the government sometime in the summer of 1992.) Dallie is found listed in Cabell County, West Virginia, enumeration district 39, page 6, line 43:
(96-118) 1649 Eleventh Ave., Huntington, Cabell County, WVa
William C. Leap (mw) 36 (m) WVa WVa WVa
Gertrude wife 35 WVa WVa WVa
Willo dau 7 WVa WVa WVa
Maxine dau 3 WVa WVa WVa
Kathleen dau 1 WVa WVa WVa
Arnold Davis boarder 28 (s) carpenter/houses WVa WVa WVa
Gay Adkins boarder 28 (s) seamstress/o'all factory WVa WVa WVa
Marie E. Bowen m-i-l 69 WVa Eng Eng
The family of Victor K. Adkins, 32, wife Emma, 25, lived two homes away. They, too rented to a boarder.
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Donna Lenora was listed in Randolph County, enumeration district 158, page 10, line 76:
Perry Lee Poling (mw) 49 (m) blacksmith/locomotive WVa WVa WVa
Stella wife 44 WVa WVa WVa
Rosco Lee[sic] son 21 (m) drugstore clerk WVa WVa WVa
Hazel dau-i-l 21 WVa WVa WVa
Dona Lee Davis niece 5 WVa WVa WVa
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Gay was listed in Summit County, Ohio, enumeration district 22, page 6, line 3:
100 Schaffer St., Akron, Summit County, Ohio
William S. Hersman (mw) 35 WVa WVa WVa
Addie wife 33 WVa WVa WVa
Ansel B. son 12 WVa WVa WVa
William L. son 9 WVa WVa WVa
Anita dau 6 WVa WVa WVa
Edward son 2-1/2 WVa WVa WVa
George C. Byrne boarder 25 (s) inspector/rub.fctry WVa WVa WVa
Gay Davis boarder 31 (wd) rubber worker WVa WVa WVa
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During May of 1992 Abbie brought to my attention some information that a colleague of hers had gained through an independent information proprietor. She gave me the necessary addresses for inquiry.
On contacting the data proprietor, I gained selected social security data on Dallie Davis, including his social security number and an address from which to secure a copy of his original application through the Freedom of Information Act. It took two tries, fourteen dollars, and an average of two months' delay per inquiry, but on 11 January, 1993 I received a copy of Dallie Davis' Treasury department form SS-5 U.S. Social Security Act Application for Account Number.
The date of the application was 27 November, 1936. He listed his home address as #410 North Jefferson Avenue in Mason City, Iowa, giving the Northwestern States Portland Cement Company as his employer. He listed Mannington, Marion County, West Virginia as his birthplace, James Davis and "Delpha" Mandora Grooms as his parents, and March 13, 1895 as his birthdate. He signed it D. A. Davis.
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Among the family data I had bought from the independent data proprietor -- and paid $6.00 for -- was information suggesting that Dallie's last legal residence was in Arkansas, no specific location. During that May of 1992 when I had made my first Freedom of Information Act inquiry to Social Security, I had also sent off an inquiry to the State of Arkansas for a copy of Dallie's death certificate, circa March of 1963. My reply came back on 22 June, 1992:
"...no record...with the information you gave us..." I was quite disappointed, but in researching genealogy, one simply plans the next strategy. I had several.
On 8 June, 1992 I sent an inquiry to Catawba County, North Carolina, site of the only other Dallie Davis- b 25 January, 1895 listed in the data packet. After all, Dallie had entered 13 March, 1895 on his Iowa Social Security application. Perhaps for his own reasons he was making more than one application. Only, for this Dallie Davis the date of death was June of 1979. "We do not have a Davis death in 1979..." was the Catawba County reply dated 13 June, 1992. They were very prompt.
Next step. Since I was still waiting to hear from my Freedom of Information application, I had to wait until the reply to my second inquiry (and second $7.00 fee) came in the mail 11 January, 1993.
The reply came, but while it gave me some new insight into Dallie Davis, there was no clue as to his place of death. He had signed up in Mason City, Iowa. On 21 January, 1993 I sent an inquiry to the Iowa Department of Public Health. For good measure I also sent an inquiry to Cerro Gordo County, county of record for Mason City, asking for Dallie's marriage license application. I had a hunch he had married the "Peg" that cousin Nellie Talkington had told me about. Mason City answered first. "This office can only give certified copies of records which have a $6.00 search fee...contact...genealogical research..." was received 25 January, 1993. Well, I can pursue Mason City later.
Next, 29 January, 1993 brought me a notary-stamped certified "...Regretfully, we are unable to locate the certificate requested..." Oh, yeah, the paid fee ($6.00) "...has been consumed into the record search..." What a racket!
I then decided to try for Dallie in North Carolina once more, and sent $10.00 on 20 February, 1993 to the North Carolina Department of Environment, Health & Natural Resources, Division of Epidemiology-Vital Records Section. Fingers crossed!
15 March, 1993 brought me a death certificate of one Mrs. Dallie Sawyer Davis, female, aged 86 at death. Well, Mrs. Dallie Davis of North Carolina, you are now immortalized in print. God bless you.
I was now officially "at wit's end". What to do?!? Then -- one of those flashes of brilliant inspiration -- you know, the kind that discovers relativity -- hit me. I re-examined the reply I'd received from Arkansas, at the top where it said:
"06/19/92
Vernon, Dallie A.
00/00/0000
$4.00"
and where it said in the first paragraph, "Dear Applicant: We have searched our records for the death certificate of the person named above..." There, in the glaring light, was my mistake, and my answer. Had I, in my excitement and haste, written in MY name -- Vernon -- in place of Grandpa's? One way to find out.
I re-applied to Arkansas for the certificate, and sent along my $4.00. On 5 April, 1993 I received in the mail one death certificate for Dallie A. Davis.
According to the document, Grandpa died on 2 March, 1963, one year to the day before the birth of my youngest daughter. Dallie was 71 years old when he died in the charge of the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He had served, it seems, in World War I. While he'd been in the hospital, it also seems, that he maintained a residence at 210 West Pine in Rogers, Arkansas.
Cause of death was 1.) Pulmonary Atelectasis, due to 2.) Hydrothorax, due to 3.) Terminal heart failure. Dallie had been at the hospital from 20 August, 1962 until his death in March of 1963. An autopsy was performed, and his body was "removed" to the Montrose Cemetery in Greenville, Illinois, birthplace of his wife Peg, by a Rogers, Arkansas funeral home.
I phoned the Greenville City Hall and was given the lot number and the name of the interring funeral home. Over the phone the funeral home owner gave me some considerable family information on Dallie, including his grave location -- grave #18, lot #333, the "Keeseecker" lot.
The family data included the name of his spouse, Minnie "Peg" Allen -Staub-Davis. Born 26 November, 1891 (although the 1900 U.S. census for Greenville, Center Township, Bond County, Illinois, page 56B, sheet 13, line 63, indicates that Minnie I. Allen was born in November of 1882), m 1.) to F. C. Staub, who is interred in grave #20, lot #333; m 2.) on 21 (or 23) September, 1923, according to the notes in the funeral home record, in Peoria, Illinois to Dallie A. Davis; d at 6:55 P.M. on 28 August, 1977 at St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria, interred in grave #19, lot #333 in Montrose Cemetery, between Dallie's resting place and that of her first husband, Staub. Her residence had been given as 205 East Forest Hill.
Peg, as she apparently preferred, was the dau of James Allen- b 1831, of Illinois, and Nancy Coffey of Iowa. Nancy was b in June of 1846 and was widowed by the 1900 census. Peg had twelve siblings according to the funeral home notes, including (according to the census): Nancy E. Allen- b 1867; Belle E. Allen- b 1871; James H. Allen- b 1875; Millie M. Allen- b 1879; Theodore Allen- b November, 1880; Minnie Allen; Florence L. Allen- b October, 1887, all of Illinois. Peg and Dallie were both listed on the notes as members of the First Church of Christ Scientist.
Dallie was listed also as chief engineer of the Northwestern States Portland Cement of Mason City, Iowa, for its Peoria, Illinois electric plant until his retirement when he moved to Rogers.
Dallie had entered the VA hospital complaining of an injured right big toe, and impaired eyesight. He was diagnosed as 1.) Ateriosclerosis obliterans with gangrene of the right foot; 2.) Diabetes mellitis; 3.) Chronic pylonephritis and nephrsclerosis (urinary tract and kidney infections); 4.) Hypertensive cardivascular disease secondary to diagnosis #3; and 5.) Anemia, secondary to diagnosis #3.
The hospital staff performed an AK amputation of the right lower extremity (right leg just above the knee) on 24 August, 1962. With medication of Diuril for his 220/120 blood pressure, and Orinese for his diabetes, Dallie's blood sugars remained "essentially within normal limits" before his death. It would be well that all of Dallie Davis's descendants -- the Vernon, and the Bosley and the Corbin grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren especially, be aware of the tendency to hereditary diabetes, and the significance of Dallie's diabetic history, particularly since his father, James W. Davis died sometime in his mid to late 30's (of presently unknown causes), his mother died between her 39th and 66th birthdays, and Dallie Davis's maternal grandmother Lodema Harvey-Grooms died at age 52.
It is also quite ironic that the surgeons who performed the amputation of Dallie's leg, and the craniotomy on his daughter Donna, were both named Gardner.
Seeking further illumination on Dallie Davis's World War I history, on 28 April, 1993, I sent letters to the Military Personnel Record Center; the American Legion of Indianapolis; Veterans of Foreign Wars of Kansas City, Missouri; and to Veterans of WWI of USA, Inc. of Washington, DC.
On 12 May, 1993 I received a packet of several pages, including some information applications for the National Archives, from the Veterans of WWI of USA, Inc. Dallie had entered the Army in July of 1918 and was discharged December, 1918. His records are currently located in the Fort Worth branch of the National Archives, from which I am awaiting an answer to my inquiry. I heard nothing from VFW, and a notice from the American Legion stating they "are not a source for genealogical information".
On 2 June, 1993 I received a response from the National Archives to my 17 May query. "Status Information: We don't have enough information for a proper search. We need: Draft board location." Yeah, like I really know that!
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Author's note: Wednesday 8:16 A.M., 28 July, 1993.
I received a phone call from Ron yesterday. Although he didn't get right into it, he had called to let me know he'd received my information package.
After I had received in the mail the data from the VA hospital and the Veterans of WWI of USA, Inc. on Dallie Davis, I had put together enough information on the diabetes Dallie had suffered from to send out a "health watch warning" to each of my kids, and one to Ron to advise the Bosleys (sisters Patty Ann Merrell and Jacqueline Soles had inherited it from their father, Elmer Corbin, but I later passed this news on to them anyway). Ron had received his information yesterday.
We talked for perhaps 20 or 30 minutes about this and that. He wasn't concerned about diabetes in his family, because diabetes is "caused from drinking too much". He had this buddy "who was a heavy drinker. He was diagnosed with problems of the pancreas, but went back to drinking. It killed him. And he was a nice guy, too".
I mentioned that I wanted him to send me a note for formality's sake that he didn't mind that I used data from his eight-page "family history". He said he didn't want me to put it in Mom's book, because "some of it's incorrect. And there's a couple of illegitimacies mentioned in there". When I asked him which illegitimacies he meant, he implied mine. It is actually written thusly:
"She also met William Vernon who left her with a baby
out of wedlock on March 5, 1938. This baby is my brother,
Dallie Arnold Vernon. Vernon paid child support for five
years, then skipped town never to be heard from since."
I asked Ron what his objection was to this information being in Mom's biography. "It's nobody's business", says he. Gee! Is that why he wrote this fact in his "family history" to be circulated among our families and extended families?
As I told him, my "illegitimacy" is my business, and my birthright; and a part of my mother's life story. And an integral part of James William Vernon's chapter. After all, Ron and Grandma made sure I grew up knowing I was illegitimate. So it is with a proud "bordure" (a heraldic devise indicating illegitimacy) that I carry my Vernon coat-of-arms, "ARGENT on a fess (AZURE not) VERT, three garbs of the field OR" (gold). It was this man, Bill Vernon, my father, whom Donna chose as her lover, bearing his offspring, so cherished that she named him for her beloved father, Dallie Arnold Davis.
We also discussed his grandchild's trip to Italy and Spain this summer. She accompanied, as companion, a friend who had gone to visit her dad who is in the service. The grandchild's fare was paid by the friend's dad, and she was expected to tour France, Switzerland and several other European countries. Ron had no interest in visiting Europe, except possibly Scotland. I mentioned that Abbie and I would like to see Ireland, and I'd enjoy going to Vernon, France, home of my ancestors.
Ron gave me three dates to consider for the extended family picnic for '94. They had one this year, he and the Columbus crowd. No, they hadn't mentioned me except that one had asked if I "still had that horrible beard..."
* * *
On 11 November, 1993 I received a letter from Dallie Davis's other grandson, Ron. In it was a copy of a 'Certification of WWI Military Service' pertaining to Dallie Davis. Ron had apparently used some of his Reserve connections to tap into the National Archives records. Well, he could have not sent it along.
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On or about 3 March, 1994 I received another packet from Ron. Enclosed was a National Archives document. It was a Statement of Service update of Dallie Davis's service record: Enlisted Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. Organization: 4th Company, 2nd Batt. (either Battalion or artillery battery), 164th DB Discharge station: Camp Funston, Kansas. Rank: Private.
The document was accompanied by corrected pages of Ron's second "family history" he had distributed earlier; an update to "correct the errors" and to include Dallie's military history that Abbie and I had worked hard and spent money to dig up. History that Ron wasn't particularly interested in when he first learned that I was doing Donna's genealogy. Well, Davis couldn't be all the scoundrel Florida Gay had painted him to be. After all, he had worn the uniform for his country!
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