John Cronin Russell Davis, Sr.

Part VIIa: Four Grandchildren of Andrew Russell and Josephine Davis

John Cronin Russell Davis, Sr.

(My Father)

Part I

On February 14, 1915, the third child, a son, was born to Isaac Luther Davis and Elle Cronin Davis. His birth certificate said that he was over 10 pounds and that his birth date was February 30, 1915. Nonetheless, his family attested to the fact that Cronin Davis was a Valentines baby, and he would remain a favorite of his two older sisters throughout their life time. Mary Lucile, his older sister, would have been 7 years old, and Margery, his second sister would have turned 3 the December before Cronin was born in February. Tragedy struck the Davis household sixteen months later when Elle Cronin Davis died in June of 1916. Cronin would have only been 16 months old at the time and was still nursing. Mary Lucile wrote years later that the death of her mother was overwhelming for her as it would have been for any child of 8 ½ years. Isaac Luther asked his sister-in-law Mayme Cronin Connick if she would continue nursing his son Cronin until he could be weaned. Aunt Mayme had a child (Vera Connick) who was six months older than Cronin so she was still nursing her own child at the time of her sister Elle’s death. As would be expected, my father, Cronin Davis, always was very close to his Aunt Mayme and always considered her a favorite aunt.

When Cronin was almost 4 years old, his father remarried. He married his wife’s sister Irene who would have been his children’s Aunt Irene. They were wed in November of 1918. Nine months later this new marriage brought forth a child, a son, who was named Isaac Luther Davis, Jr. The young boy would forever be known as I. L. At the time of I. L.’s birth the other children called their step-mother Aunt Irene. In order not to confuse I. L. has he grew up in the family, Aunt Irene requested that the older three children begin calling her “Mother” instead of Aunt Irene. The older three children complied with their step-mother’s request and from then on she was “Mother” to all of them.

As has been told by various relatives, Cronin grew to be a strong boy with well developed muscles and a fine physique. His stature was inherited from his mother’s people, the Cronins, and more precisely, his grandmother Mary Ann Taylor Cronin. His grandfather John Patrick Cronin was quite a tall man well over six feet. His grandmother Mary Ann Cronin, however, was very short as were many of her children. Nonetheless, Cronin Davis’s tallness as a man was not determined by his shadow. His broad muscular shoulders and arms as well as strong muscular legs—characteristics he gave to some of his sons and grandsons and even great-grandsons—were only the outward characteristic of a man who had an equally strong and generous heart for sharing his talents and abilities with those he knew.

When Cronin was 14 years old he began smoking cigarettes. He used to hide the cigarettes under a large wicker clothes hamper so that his parents wouldn’t know that he smoked. Around the same age, when a riding a horse one day, Cronin fell off the horse and broke his leg. Evidence of the break would stay with him for the rest of his life as one leg was shorter than the other. Not enough shorter to be seen by others but enough to be felt by the owner of the leg.

I was told by several sources (Father, Mother, 1^st Cousin of my Dad (Evan Terry) that when Cronin Davis graduated from McGill Institute in 1933 at the age of 18, he hopped on a motorcycle and rode all the way from Mobile, Alabama to Chicago, Illinois. Cronin attended the 1933 World’s Fair. After staying in Chicago for the Fair, he ran out of money. After wiring his dad for cash, Cronin left his motorcycle on the streets of Chicago and somehow made his way back to Alabama. He settled in Moundville, Alabama, the boyhood home of his father. Cronin’s cousin McGlaun Evan Terry told me recently that Cronin lived with his family (Uncle Evan Terry and Aunt Katie Davis Terry and children—Evan Terry, Barbara Ann Terry and Hilda Terry) until he married in 1936. My dad worked several jobs for his Uncle Evan (aka Evie Terry). He worked at an ice house delivering ice, drove a truck for delivery of farm produce, and worked as a mechanic at Moundville Motor Company (a Ford dealership and service company). Cousin Evan Terry relates that Cronin would most likely have met his future wife, Evelyn Elliott, at one of the football games played at Hale County High School in Moundville. Evelyn Elliott (my mother) was head cheerleader at HCH. This was a position she held throughout her lifetime in all areas of her life. She graduated from HCH in 1936—three years after her intended graduation in 1933. The Great Depression had closed most schools during that time period and she wasn’t able to finish high school until ’36. Cronin Davis and Evelyn Elliott were married on September 9, 1936. They were married in Tuscaloosa, Alabama at the Rectory of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church and spent there first night at the Moundville Hotel with dinner at the locally famous (even to this day) restaurant MELISSA’S. I assume you can still get a REAL hamburger at MISS MELISSA’S. This restaurant has a story and history of its own. Cronin and Evelyn would eat at MELISSA’S over the years and celebrate their 48^th wedding anniversary in 1984 (their last anniversary before my father’s death in 1985) by eating at MISS MELISSA’S as it is called these days. (To be continued).