Lelia Ann Davis was born on January 26, 1935, in Isola, Mississippi, and passed away on November 12, 2025, in Newport News, Virginia. Her parents, Lelia Richards Ferguson and Richard Sanford Overby, resided near Wolf Lake near Louise, in the Mississippi Delta.
She attended Mississippi State College for Women (now Mississippi University for Women in Columbus) and earned her diploma with a double major in English and Speech. During one memorable summer, she worked in Yellowstone National Park. Another summer found her working at Stouffer’s restaurant in New York City, where she spent many hours attending Broadway plays.
Lelia taught high school English in Boone, Iowa, and later at U.S. Air Force base schools—first at Nouasseur in Morocco and then at Châteauroux in France. While in France, she met and married Donald Keith Davis, who worked in the Civilian Personnel Office. Together they raised a family, saw their children educated and married, and shared 49 years of marriage. During that time, they lived and worked in Châteauroux,France, in Munich, Kaiserslautern and Karlsruhe in West Germany, Madrid in Spain, and McLean and Newport News, Virginia. She travelled widely in Western Europe, as well as Greece, Russia, Israel, Lebanon and Egypt.
She is survived by her son Sirl Davis and his wife Céline and their sons Marc and Franck; her son Sean Davis and his daughters Rania and Issa; her son, Seth Davis, his wife, Veronica, and their sons, Keith, Ray, and Ivan, along with his daughters, Stephanie Ann and Sydney Lee.
She is also survived by her sisters Winnie Fay, Pauline, Cora Alice, and Victoria.
In 1998 and 2000, Lelia won first place in the Christopher Newport University Poetry Contest. She was deeply passionate about tracing her family history and genealogy, discovering relatives in Williamsburg and many other places across the country.
She loved reading and was a voracious reader. She enjoyed gardening, pottery, and painting. Above all, she cherished family gatherings when the house was filled with the joyful noise of her children and grandchildren.
Knotty Questions
(Lelia Anne Davis)
Why do you tie three knots
into your handkerchief, grandma?
I don’t remember,
But it’s on the tip of my tongue.
You said that the last time.
And the time before that, when
Ducks flew south and spiders died,
And an airplane sheared the bird-pond.
Grandma fingered each knot in turn:
I’ll tell you my secret. The first knot
Is to recall “The Lord’s Prayer.”
The second is to remember to tell
Grandpa I love him when his face
Shrivels like a dried apple.
And the third? What is the third knot?
Why to tell you I love you
More than anything in the world
Whether the sky crashes,
Or the bird-pond jumps the garden.
I will love you until Juvember.
I want to play the game, grandma,
Tie knots for you.
Let me borrow
Your handkerchief.
No, no, no. You never borrow a handkerchief.
It will borrow someone’s sorrow;
Tears will fall to raise a river.
Each one must fetch his own.
Or something bad will happen.
But what will happen, Grandma?
Something…it’s on the tip of my tongue.
