THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 25, 1995 TAG: 9501250356
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
DATELINE: GREAT FALLS, MONT. LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
William Tilden Davis, 83, died Friday, Jan. 13, 1995, in Great Falls, after moving there in October, 1994, to be with his son.
Mr. Davis was born Oct. 27, 1911, in Norfolk. He was the son of the late Alice Josephine Carmine Davis and the Rev. Fred Graham Davis, a former well known pastor of the Colonial Avenue Methodist Church in Norfolk.
Prior to his retirement in 1966, Mr. Davis was employed for 30 years by the Wright Aeronautical division of the Curtis-Wright Corporation. He began his career with the aircraft engine company in the manufacturing department and was made a special advisor to top management in matters relative to engineering sales.
Following World War II, Mr. Davis worked with the pioneers of the U.S. space effort and compiled several text books dealing with design parameters, combustion characteristics and operation of ram jet, turbo prop and rocket engines. These books were used by engineering schools throughout the country. He was also employed as consultant by Thiokol Chemical Corp., makers of the rocket engines for the minuteman ICBM.
Mr. Davis attended high school in Newport News, Va., and under the direction of Miss Dorothy Crane, he won the first Virginia State Dramatic Tournament, sponsored by The College of William and Mary and won the hearts of everyone when he played Chico in ``Seventh Heaven'' opposite Daisy Moore and Sally Moss. Subsequently, he attented the American Academy of Dramatic Art and graduated with honors and later was active in theatre on Broadway. He was also a member, past president and clarinet player for the Ridgewood, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
He was a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers, wrote a weekly column about automobiles for a metropolitan New York newspaper and had articles published in leading automotive magazines.
In Hawaii, Mr. Davis, a relative of Benjamin West, without any formal training, started to paint and he sold approximately 800 portraits and landscapes.
He married Elizabeth Hutton Curts of Paterson, N.J., in 1940. Following her death in 1967, he married Virginia Johnson Hilton of Norfolk, Va. During retirement, the Davis' divided their time between homes in Flordia, the Hawaiian Islands and Williamsburg. Mrs. Virginia Davis died during October 1988.
Survivors include a daughter, Reverend Jennifer Davis Blend of Boulder, Colo.; a son, James Tilden Davis of Great Falls, Mont.; two sisters, Alice D. Wolf of Newport News, Va. and Roberta Parrish of Florida; five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A funeral service will be conducted at 2 p.m. Friday in H.D. Oliver Funeral Apts., Norfolk Chapel, by the Rev. Evelyn A. Puckett. Burial will be in Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer's Disease Association.
KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY by CNB