Alma Newton Davis

I have let far more time elapse in posting about our trip to my grandmother's grave site than what I had intended. The Monday before Christmas my mom, grandfather (White Papa), Addison, Davis, and I took a ride to Chester, PA, to visit Chester Rural Cemetery where she is buried. She passed away April 7, 2004, just shy of us finding out Addison was on the way. It is one of those things I've played over and over again in my mind. If only she could have known him. He is exactly the kind of person who would have made her already merry heart filled to overflowing.

My grandmother, Alma Newton Davis, was an amazing, resilient woman who lived through troubled times and emerged a stronger person for it. She was born on January 29, 1922 and would have been 87 this month. She lived her early years during the Great Depression and lost her father in a work-site accident when she was just a baby. At the tender age of 10, her mother passed away from what today is a treatable pregnancy complication. Her step-father never officially adopted her, and although she loved him dearly, he had no legal claim to her guardianship. Instead, she went to live with her aunt and uncle on the original Wawa dairy farm. Her time there was very unhappy, and she left when she was just 16. She entered the Women's Army Corps (WACs) during World War II and was stationed in Paris for some time during that conflict. She married my grandfather after the war and was adamant that as an orphaned only child she would have a big family. True to her word, she gave birth to three children, my Uncle Mike, Uncle Ray, and my mom. They went on to give her 7 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren, 2 of whom she knew in her lifetime.

She had a hearty laugh you'd never forget and loved shoes more than any woman I know. She was partial to Betty Crocker scalloped potatoes, cherry pie, and Beringer white zinfandel. When my sister and I would spend the night at her house, she'd always fix us grilled cheese sandwhiches and chocolate milk for lunch and take us to the mall for an afternoon outing. She kept a generous supply of white TicTacs in her purse, and when she'd come to visit us, which she did almost every weekday afternoon, she was never empty-handed, usually bringing chocolate Tastykake cupcakes much to my mother's chagrin.

Her passing marked a milestone in my life, my first real encounter with death. I remember my mom calling me at work the morning she'd died and I left right away to be with her. I will never forget those serene moments standing by her bedside in the hospital room, the curtain respectfully drawn for privacy, looking at her body which was now just a shell, a shadow of what she once was, holding her cold, still hand. There was something heartbreaking about witnessing the ravages of life in a sinful world on our bodies at such close proximity and simultaneously comforting knowing that her previously pain-ridden body was now at rest in the arms of her Savior. Mom-mom is dearly missed, an absence even more keenly felt during the big moments which punctuate our year like holidays, but I find great joy in knowing that, although she never met my boys this side of eternity, she will on the other.