Grandma Davis

 My Dad's mother was Almira Maud Drake Davis.  I was two years old when she died so I don't remember her at all.  My Dad told me a few things about my grandma that would be fun to relate. Daddy said that when he was young he slept in the attic in their home in Arcata.  It was cold up there as the heat for the house came from the stove in the kitchen.  He would listen every morning to see if he could hear his mother moving around in the kitchen.  He could hear the clanking of the stove door if she was up. He would dress under the covers and slip out of bed and run for the kitchen if he heard her.  He said she often had terrible migraine headaches and would be in bed for days. On those days he would dress warm and go down to the kitchen and start the fire in the stove if his sister hadn't done it yet. Since he was the only boy in the family he would have also chopped all the wood and stacked it. Dad just had one sister who was 8yrs older than he was.  Her name was Maude Elizabeth Davis.

My Dad's father died when Dad was seven years old.  Since Grandma had spent every dollar of their money on Drs. she had to support the family by taking in sewing.  In those days you couldn't just go to the store and buy a dress, you had to have a seamstress make it for you.  Ladies would just show her a picture of what they wanted in a magazine and grandma would make the pattern and sew up the dress.  Dad said that often she would just measure the woman and throw the pattern paper on the floor and draw the pattern.  She made a very good living being a seamstress. 

                          Grandma Davis was only 4 ft. 8 inches tall. She was very thin and dainty.   Dad said her dinner plate was a bread saucer. She would put a small spoonful of each item on the saucer and that would be her dinner. She was a very religious woman.  The family attended the same church until my Aunt Maude (Dad's Sister ) died.  . I think it was the Methodist Church. When my Dad was young she belonged to the Temperance Movement.

                         Grandpa and Grandma got married when he was 50 yrs. old and she was 20.  He was a partner in the ownership of a Tanning mill.  When he bought her the house in Arcata he furnished it completely down to all the linens and decorations before he moved her into it.