Personal Life
Davis married Elnora Dickerson in 1902—the two had known each other as neighbors for many years. Their first child was born in 1905: daughter Olive Davis. A son was born in 1912: Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. In early 1916 a second daughter was born, but Davis's wife died a few days later from complications of childbirth. The daughter was named for her: Elnora Davis. Without a mother for the children, Davis relied upon the grandparents in Washington, D.C., for childcare while he was serving a tour of duty in the Philippines. In 1919 Davis married Sarah "Sadie" Overton, an English teacher at Wilberforce University. They were married 47 years, the partnership ending at Sadie's death on October 25, 1966.
Davis's son became the first black general officer of the United States Air Force in October 1954.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)