Jimmie Davis - Personal Life

Personal Life

Davis' first wife, the former Alvern Adams, the daughter of a physician in Shreveport, was the first lady while he was governor during both terms. She died in 1967. He thereafter married Anna Carter Gordon, then a member of the Chuck Wagon Gang gospel singers based in Nashville, Tennessee.

Out of office, Davis resided primarily in Baton Rouge but made numerous singing appearances, particularly in churches throughout the United States.

Davis died on November 5, 2000. He had suffered a fall in his home some ten months earlier and may have had a stroke in his last days. He is interred alongside his first wife at the Jimmie Davis Tabernacle Cemetery in his native Beech Springs community near Quitman. In addition to his second wife, Anna, Davis was survived by a son, James William "Jim" Davis (November 25, 1944 - November 2, 2012), a farmer from Newellton in Tensas Parish in northeastern Louisiana, where the former governor owned considerable property. Davis had a daughter-in-law, Diane Keahey Davis of Newellton, the widow of Jim Davis, a granddaughter, DeCarla Sunshine Davis Netterville, and her husband, Jeff, of Natchez, Mississippi, and two great-grandchildren, Summer Katlyn Netterville and Addie Grace Netterville. There were also two step-children, Greg Gordon and Vicky Gordon. Jim Davis was cremated.

Davis was aged 101 years and 55 days, which made him the longest-lived of all U.S. state governors at the time of his death. Davis held this record until March 18, 2011, when Albert Rosellini of Washington achieved a greater lifespan of 101 years, 56 days.

Davis was posthumously inducted into the Delta Music Museum Hall of Fame in Ferriday.