- Writing parking tickets with a friendly smile (4/23/24)2
- Mayor Ford, Kiwanis light up Capaha Park's diamond (4/16/24)1
- The rise and fall of Capaha Park's wooden grandstand (4/9/24)
- Death of Judge Pat Dyer, prosecutor of the famous peonage case here in 1906 (4/2/24)2
- A third steamer Cape Girardeau was christened 100 years ago (3/26/24)
- Cape Girardeau christens its namesake (3/19/24)
- The humanist philosophy of Lester Mondale (3/12/24)1
The long life and death of George Washington Davis
Just days before he was to celebrate his 99th birthday on Dec. 25, 1921, "Uncle" George Washington Davis told readers of The Southeast Missourian it was his ardent wish to live one more year: "Uncle Wash is religiously inclined. 'If God will let me live one more year, until I am 100 years old, I will be satisfied and will be willing to die. But I do want to live one more year,' he said earnestly."
Davis got his wish. He lived to be 102 years, 11 months and 21 days old, passing on to his Maker on Dec. 16, 1925, as this death certificate from the Missouri Secretary of State's website shows.
Missouri death certificates, free at the site mentioned, provide a wealth of knowledge for the researcher, including place of birth and death, birth and death dates, burial place and cause of death. If you're lucky, the certificates will even show the names of the decedent's parents. In the case of George Washington Davis, however, only his father's name is listed: Charles Yandell. This is hardly surprising, though, as Davis was born a slave to slave parents in Tennessee.
However, the Southeast Missourian did several articles about him that give some of the details of his lengthy life.
He was born on a plantation in Haywood County, eastern Tennessee, on Dec. 25, 1822. An article published Dec. 24, 1921, provides this statement about his parentage: "His parents were slaves, the property of Tom Yandell, who brought the family to New Madrid a few years after Washington's birth." Other articles indicate only his mother was a slave.
When he was about 20 years old, Davis was sold to Daniel Clippard of Oak Ridge. The article continues, "He stayed there only a few months and ran away, only to be captured and kept by Charles Davis of Jackson. He was freed in 1863 after serving on the gunboat 'Robert Allen' as a fireman. He returned to Cape Girardeau city in 1865 and has been living here ever since."
Davis was married in 1874, but the article doesn't reveal his wife's name. Ancestry.com reveals "Rev. G.W. Davis" was married to Laura Rutlage on May 7, 1874, in Cape Girardeau County. Along with his widow, he was survived by three children: Nathaniel Davis of Arkansas, and Mrs. Katie Gravett and Mrs. Ethel Fitzgerald, both of Cape Girardeau.
What follows are the articles I could find about the long life of Uncle Wash, including his obituary. I hope you'll find them as interesting as I did.
Dec. 23, 1922:
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