Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 24, 1994 TAG: 9402240319
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
She wanted to take an airplane ride.
"It just wasn't convenient," Davis said.
So on Jan. 21, her birthday, she was thrilled when her son, Mason Davis, and his wife, Helen - with whom she lives - gave her plane tickets to visit a grandson in Florida.
Every year, Mason and Helen Davis take Ida with them when they drive their mobile home to Jacksonville, Fla., to visit their son, Charlie Davis. Then the three drive on to Bradenton, Fla., to spend time with a granddaughter, Nita Brown. This year, however, Mason and Helen will meet Ida in Jacksonville before driving on to Bradenton. Then they will take her back to Jacksonville for her return flight.
Davis originally was to have left Jan. 26, but came down with the flu a few days before her flight. By Feb. 9, however, she had completely recovered. She was so eager to go, Helen Davis said, that she followed her doctor's instructions exactly.
Aside from her recent illness, Davis is in excellent health, both mentally and physically, although she does use a cane to steady herself.
Davis was in a nursing home for a while after she broke a hip, Mason Davis said, but she didn't stay long.
" `I want out of here,' " she told him. " `This place is full of old people!' "
She doesn't have any special secret to her longevity. In fact, Mason Davis said, "she eats all the things that will kill you."
Ida Davis was born in Wise County in 1900 in the coal mining town of Toms Creek, near Coeburn. In 1918, after finishing the seventh grade, she went to what was called "normal school" at what is now Radford University, to learn to be a teacher.
She taught in Wise County schools until she married in 1920. When her children were in their teens, she worked as a nurse. During World War II, she worked for the Department of the Navy.
Her husband, Charles Lee Davis, was a coal miner. When he retired in 1963, the couple moved to Hillsville and opened a store there. After he died in 1969, she moved to Vinton to live with her daughter, Katie Smith. When Smith died three years ago, Davis moved in with Mason and Helen Davis.
Ida Davis has a "sweet" personality, said granddaughter Iris Gibson, Katie Smith's daughter.
"She doesn't gripe about things," Mason Davis agreed.
She's also very independent, Helen Davis said. "She will do without before she'll ask for help."
Ida Davis is an active member of the Vinton Church of the Brethren and keeps busy reading - "mostly trash," Gibson laughed - and doing crossword puzzles. She also enjoys watching "Murder She Wrote" and "Wheel of Fortune" on TV, and likes playing bingo, Helen Davis said.
She is not a person to dwell on the past, her son said. "She stays right on top of it."
"The children adore her," Helen Davis said. "They're what keeps her young."
"She watches MTV with me," said great-granddaughter Erin Davis. "She has a lot to say."
Mason Davis, 72, is the only of her three children living, but Ida Davis also has 10 grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
A large contingent of relatives came to see Davis off at the airport. Besides Mason and Helen Davis, Iris Gibson and Erin Davis, there was grandson Charlie Davis and his wife, Beth; grandson Gary Winters; and great-grandchildren Sarah, Blaine and Jared Davis.
Davis didn't seem at all nervous as she waited to board her flight. Gibson said her grandmother was "a little excited" beforehand, but Davis said, "I have no fear of it."
Because of her age, she boarded the plane early, and because it was her first flight, she was given a tour of the cockpit and a certificate from USAir.
"We're glad to have her along," said the pilot, Capt. Bob Schrier.
Because of bad weather, Davis had a three-hour layover in Charlotte, N.C., but, "I didn't even put my foot on the ground." A flight attendant kept Davis with her the entire time and drove her around the terminal on a motorized cart.
"I didn't have time to get bored," Davis said in a telephone interview from Brown's home in Bradenton. "I had a ball. Everyone was wonderful to me."
by CNB