Census Sunday: Millard and Edith

If I follow my established pattern, it’s time to discuss my maternal grandparents.  However, I did that already HERE long before I decided to dedicate Sunday to the 1940 census.  So instead of discussing Granddaddy and Grandma Davis, I’m moving on to the aunts and uncles.  First up, Granddaddy’s brother Millard.

Millard and Edith Kite Davis
I can see that Millard had his father's dapper style
and Edith was very pretty as a young woman.

I always thought Millard and Edith Irene Kite Davis lived their entire married lives on Sixth Street in Shenandoah, Virginia.  But no.  I was surprised to find them instead in Norfolk, Virginia in 1940.  Apparently my perception that Ocean View was merely a vacation destination for them was incorrect.

Click to englarge

Image from Google Maps
The apartment building must have been on that vacant
corner lot.  I can remember seeing their building,
so the demolition is fairly recent.

They were renting apartment 4A on 3241 Granby Street for $35 a month.  If they lived there now, they could walk across the street to Lafayette Park and the Norfolk Zoo.

Image from Google Maps

The formal entrance to the park is right across the street.

Millard was working as an assistant storekeeper for the Norfolk & Western railroad. He was fully employed throughout 1939 and had worked 44 hours the last week of March 1940. His salary was recorded as “C” and then marked through. I have no clue what “C” could have meant since the salary is typically a dollar amount.

In 1935 Millard and Edith were living in Page County, Virginia, presumably in the same house as in 1930, which was next door to Walter and Mary Frances Jollett Davis, Millard’s mother and father and my great-grandparents. But in 1940, they were renting their house to Thomas and Edna Jensen for $20 a month. Jensen was a signal supervisor for the railroad. Maybe he and Millard met at work. 

By 1942, according to his draft registration, Millard and Edith had moved to 15^th Street in Ocean View. Again, another surprise: Millard had a tattoo on his lower left arm. 

The following year they returned to Shenandoah where Millard accepted a position as storekeeper for the railroad. He died a short eight years later. 

I wonder what other surprises Millard and Edith revealed in the 1950 US Census.

©2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: K

This is day 11 of the A to Z April Challenge. 

is for Kite.  Edith Kite was my grand aunt, wife to my maternal grandfather’s brother Millard Davis.  I knew her just as an older woman.  She lived next door to my aunt and uncle on Sixth Street in Shenandoah, Virginia, right in the heart of my Davis roots.  Across the street was the house where my mother was born and the store my great-grandfather built and my grandfather ran for a time. 

Edith had the best posture of anyone I ever met.  She always seemed taller than most people.  She wore what appeared to be “old lady” shoes, kind of orthopedic-looking but maybe that was the style – I was a kid.  What did I know?  A house dress with belt or a skirt and blouse.  Always neatly pressed.    

Millard and Edith Kite Davis
before 1950

In her younger years, Edith and Millard had a vacation home in Ocean View. 

At the fence: Velma and Woody Woodring,
Orvin Davis Jr., Edith Kite Davis
Under the tent:  Lucille and Orvin Davis, my grandparents

They never had children.  Don’t tell, but Grandma said Edith used to go to Ocean View for a “procedure.”  Hmm.  Wonder what that means??

Millard and Edith Kite Davis
sometime in 1930s

Visiting Edith was always a part of our family visit to the Shenandoah Valley although we never stayed with her.  A visit meant an hour or so.  She lived in a cute Craftsman-style bungalow.

Side view of Edith's house

Cute from the outside anyway.  We NEVER were invited inside.  We always sat on one of the two screened porches that flanked the door to her mystery house.  It was odd never to go inside, but I never minded because she had wonderful porches and the best rockers.  Whenever I see those rockers for sale at Cracker Barrel, I am reminded of Edith’s rockers.  It was always pleasant rocking away in the cool of an afternoon. 

I think never being invited inside was somewhat of a metaphor for Edith’s life.  My memories are of a nice old lady. As I’ve learned more about her as an adult, she seems to be well, peculiar, bordering on bitter and cruel.  My aunt who was Edith’s nearest neighbor for years took care of her in her old age, brought her food, cleaned, sat for hours and talked.  Yet Edith gave her nothing.  Edith gave my cousin a table she no longer wanted but years afterwards demanded it back, practically accusing my cousin of stealing it.  A visit to Edith was met with sarcasm as punishment for not coming on a different day.  Was she always that way or was this the dreadful accompaniment of old age?

I don’t know.  But I choose to remember the nice old lady with gold fillings that twinkled through a quite lovely smile.

You’ll Kick yourself if you don’t check out the Killer blogs at A to Z April Challenge.

©2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.