Edna Earle Davis (December 25, 1950)
Sometimes, I question God's purposes and plans. However, they are something I have always believed in. Every week, as I am flipping through our television channels, inevitably flashed before me is a televangelist preaching from his camera-lit pulpit. For the most part, the thematic summation of the sermons is that if you pray hard enough, live totally without sin, and, of course, tithe, you will see the pearly gates of heaven. It usually emphasizes that if you follow those three simple instructions (especially to tithe), you will be rewarded with peace and prosperity here on Earth. Of course, their belief system is hugely flawed. Skimmed over are the verses within the white pages of the Bible that express that none of us are without sin and that only God's child, Jesus, is perfect and flawless. They ignore the stories within the Bible foretelling the trials and tribulations endured by God's apostles and others merely to fulfill God's purpose, God's plan. Intentionally, they disregard all the verses that de-emphasize the importance of our time here on Earth and reiterate that trials and tests are not part of God's punishment but are God's test of faith for us all. This year, I found myself questioning God's motives and asking the why question. But then I discovered a verse that I now silently repeat to myself to help assure me that there is God's love despite what is evidenced by my flawed character, empty bank account, scad possessions, and barren womb. Hebrews 12:5-7 says, My son, do not take lightly the discipline of the Lord, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you 6. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastises everyone He receives as a son 7. Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?"
The Bible has answered my question in Hebrews, but one question remains. Why does it seem like God disciplines some much more than others? Undoubtedly, some have certainly been tested in immeasurable ways regardless of whether or not the pews were vacant with their presence, their generosity adequately tithed to their pastors, their repertoire of remembered verses vast enough, or how deep the dented impressions left from their knees knelt with praying pleas. I know I have often believed that God has given me more than I thought possible to bear, and yet, I have been continuously proven wrong. I am also continually shown that there are people who have sustained worse storms than I will ever be made to face and have stood again graciously to shout reverently to God. My aunt, Edna Earl Davis, is an example of an imperfect Christian whose faith God constantly tests. Yet, she continues to praise her God. As I have learned, it is easy to be a Christian standing when basking in God's glorious sun. It is more difficult when lightning is striking, the wind is gusting, the rains are torrential, and the hail is pounding you. My aunt is a Christian who has weathered it all and has never lost her faith. Here is her inspiring story.
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| Bernard, John Randall, Dewey Lee, Henry Lee, Robert Davis, Edna Earle, Sara Nell, and Martha Ann Davis. |
It seems fitting that my aunt Edna Earl Davis was born on Christmas day in 1950 to my grandparents, Ollie Lee Davis (September 22, 1906-February 6, 1972) and Fannie Bea Laster (August 18, 1920-May 2, 1986). It also seems fitting that it was 60 degrees Fahrenheit outside when the kiss of winter touched their cheeks, completing the fantasy dream of a perfect Christmas. She was the sixth child born of nine to my impoverished grandparents, and her siblings included: Bernard (November 25, 1945-October 30, 2013), Bonnie (November 25, 1945-November 25, 1945), John Randall (November 19, 1946-December 24, 1988), Dewey Lee (December 22, 1947-May 2, 2006), Sara Nell (October 11, 1949-April 19, 2022), Martha Ann (March 31, 1953-July 8, 2014), Henry Lee (September 12, 1956), and Robert Earl (January 26, 1958-November 27, 2014). Of course, my mom, Sara Nell, always jokes that my aunt was the worst Christmas present she ever received. But, the reality is that my mom and her sisters, Martha and Edna, were relatively close throughout their lives. Despite not having money growing up as children, their childhood years were comparatively happy. My aunt, along with her siblings, never completed their education, and in the few years that they did attend school, they were sadly only ever met with bullying and ridicule. All of them lacked an appropriate wardrobe, and what clothes worn were ragged and dirty in appearance, weathered down from time and the washings from their wringer washing machine. So unfortunately, because of the conditions of her childhood, my aunt never learned to read and write. But despite being dropped on her forehead as a child, which affected her cognitively, and her lack of education, my aunt is astute, being able to successfully forge and persevere her way through any situation in which she may have otherwise been disadvantaged.
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| James Wesley Martin and Edna Earle Davis |
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| Anglish Jerome "Jimmy" Martin Sara Angela "Angie" Moats |
My aunts basking in the sweetness of new motherhood lasted 446 days exactly. On December 30, 1967, my aunt experienced her first difficult and painful heartbreak. Someone who had just finished visiting with my grandfather, Jack, had failed to see Jimmy, the precocious child trailing behind his grandfather. Accidentally, he had backed over Jimmy, failing to see the toddler in a blind spot. In agony, my grandfather wailed to the visitor, "You killed my baby!" His wrenching declaration displays the emotion that most grandparents would feel over such a tragic loss. In a photo-etched in my memory, my aunt and her husband, Wesley, are standing over the coffin that contained their lost son. A thousand words could never adequately express their grief, but somehow became captured in a single photo. Evidence of the private torment the two suffered. It was a difficult loss that would be hard for any healthy marriage to sustain, and theirs never stood a chance.
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| James Wesley Martin |
Because of Wesley's high regard for himself, it is easy to believe he could perceive himself as every woman's dream, and naturally, because of his high self-esteem, it was inevitable that extramarital affairs would occur within his marriage to my aunt. It is uncertain when his prowling began, but my aunt soon started suspecting that more women than she existed beneath the sheets in his bed. Unfortunately, her lingering suspicions turned into reality when she discovered him with another woman in July, just shortly before their son's death. The other woman, a third cousin, soon became pregnant, and the deliverance of a son a mere nine months later left many to speculate and doubt the paternity of the child. Both her husband and Wesley are probable candidates. Unfortunately, the truth remains buried along with the secret of their infidelity. But if there was any solace for my aunt, it was knowing that the affair did not stem solely from lust. Wesley had loved her third cousin. It was just, sadly, circumstances that had kept them divided. Regardless of his reasons, my aunt chose to remain in her marriage and later conceived two more sons, Wesley Brunnell Lee (September 30, 1969) and Tracey Lynn (June 30, 1975-February 26, 2024).
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| Edna Earle Davis, Doris Irene Mercer |
The trouble between my aunt and Wesley went beyond his abilities as a womanizer, though. He was also cruel and calculating. The degradation inflicted on someone deceived was not the only punishment my aunt received in retribution for her love for Wesley. She also received physical humiliation from the hands that she so lovingly placed her ring upon. However, despite his physical and mental abuse, Edna was never strong enough to rid herself of Satin's spawn. She would have stayed and endured until the end. Fortunately, though, Wesley did the kindest act he could have ever unintentionally done by dealing the final blow to their marriage by filing for divorce. So, on September 22, 1976, their divorce became final, ending eleven years of marriage and all of my aunt's hopes and dreams. Later, justice prevailed against some of Wesley's misdeeds; however, when he gets imprisoned for forging and passing bad checks. In prison, Wesley said he found redemption. However, it was years beyond too late for any reconciliatory gesture between the two. Life had passed by, and they had both moved on.
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| Gary Curtis Roy Pitts |
Characteristically, some people move on from lost love by rapidly replacing it with another love. And well, sometimes, such a need to quickly quench the pain over loss or loneliness leads to a willingness to invest in the first person who mildly assuages one's needs. Arguably, presumably, and speculatively, those were the motivating and mitigating factors that led my aunt to marry her second husband, Gary Curtis Roy Pitts, son of Roy Jackson Pitts and Helen Louise Oliver, on January 21, 1977, in Donalsonville, Seminole County, Georgia. Like Wesley, Roy had difficulty in telling the truth, and one of his fondest lies was regarding the time he spent serving in the United States Army in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Instead of military records displaying his time as a hero, a prison record indicating his incarceration on November 25, 1968, for forgery and bigamy in Lownes County, Georgia, exists in the Georgia Central Register of Convicts records. Instead of serving four years honorably, Roy spent five years in prison with an attempt to escape on May 19, 1969. But in the presence of that moment, my aunt had no capability of debunking all of Roy's lies. He could not have spent time serving in green honors at the same time as wearing a prison jumpsuit. His record became clear later, as well as my aunt's. My aunt had rid herself of one masterful liar, though, only to be connected legally to another. It was becoming clear that she had a particular type of man that she migrated toward.
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| Edna Earle Davis |
Many signs should have been omens for my aunt, but despite the hard knocks earned through her first marriage, she remained naive to a man's ability to be callous. Betrayed by her illiteracy, there were some things, including a marriage license that did not represent Roy's legal name, Gary Curtis, that should have been proof to my aunt that he lacked character. His alias name was never known, though, until discovered through his obituary declaring his death on November 14, 2015, in Quinton County, Georgia. My aunt had only ever known Gary as Roy, and the legal representation of his name on their marriage certificate certainly raises the question of the legality of their marriage. Since history had illustrated Roy's capability as a bigamist, the question now lingers as to whether she was his only wife or legal wife during those years together and the reason behind his using an alias. But there were other ways besides lying in which Roy's behavior emulated Wesley's. As with Wesley, my aunt suffered abuse and infidelity by Roy. His abuse included physically disciplining her sons, Lee and Tracey, for even trivialities. Love is blind, and fear is real, so Edna forged on with her marriage and started building a family with Roy. Together, they had three sons: Nathan (March 10, 1977), Jason Lee (1978), and Ralph Leon (August 26, 1979). Nathan and Jason Lee were immediately lost to my aunt and were either stillborn or died within hours of being born. For obvious reasons, Roy and my aunt's marriage failed, and on October 5, 1983, they divorced. Fortunately, my aunt received sole custody of their son, Leon.
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| Larry Iverson McDonald |
My aunt waited nearly ten years to marry her third husband, Larry Iverson McDonald, son of Bert F. McDonald and Sarah Inez Ditty. On February 19, 1994, they wedded in Jackson County, Florida. The time spent between Roy and Larry for my aunt was years spent alone battling the seizures that severely inflicted her son, Leon. As Leon grew, the severity of his seizures increased, therefore eventually requiring him to wear a helmet nearly twenty-four hours a day to protect him physically from any further head injuries. Cognitively, Leon was already showing severe deficits as a toll of the numerous seizures he had suffered. And in the middle of Leon's struggles, sadly, my aunt's other two sons, Lee and Tracey, began getting lost in the chaos of her choices. My aunt's eldest son, Lee, with her urging in 1984, briefly moved to Bradenton, Florida, where he lived with my parents, Kenneth and Sara. There, in their presence, Lee flourished. But sadly, after being released from prison, his biological father, Wesley, persuaded him, with the mere enticement of a broken promise of a motorcycle, to return to Marianna. Later, Lee succumbed to drug addiction, putting a strain on my aunt's new marriage. His father had purposefully sabotaged his future for malignant reasons.
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| Ralph Leon Pitts, Edna Earle Davis |
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| Larry Iverson McDonald, Edna Earle Davis |
Invariably, my aunt seemed to choose men with a prison incarceration history, and Larry was no different. He, too, came with an arrest and imprisonment record. As a father of three, Larry had no significant relationship with any of his children, so bonding with my aunt's remaining two held no appeal. Larry was flawed, but he compensated in ways that her other husbands had not. Larry was kind, non-abusive, and faithful. However, he dissuaded and discouraged my aunt from having relationships with her sons and family. He wanted the two to remain sheathed in one another, and his isolationist behavior allotted few to be a part of their lives. Easily influenced, my aunt distanced herself unconsciously from the others who loved her. Seeing that she was finally happy and flourishing, we surrendered to Larry's unspoken requests and supported their private seclusion. Larry and my aunt seemed perfect for one another, and for the first time, my aunt seemed to be in a relatively healthy relationship. During those years, she was finally working, finding employment first at Walmart in floor maintenance and then later at a nursing home working in the kitchen. They were happy together and spent the remaining years of his life in his childhood home. They were not wealthy, but they were in love. They remained inseparable until his death on December 30, 2016, leaving my aunt with a void never again filled. He was her cliched soul mate.
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| Edna Earle Davis |
If you count up the losses suffered by my aunt, it is staggering. She has lost both parents, seven siblings, three husbands, and five sons. It is doubtful that many could withstand such tragedy. In some ways, my aunt has lost six sons because Lee has suffered from drug addiction for the majority of his adult life. Years ago, my aunt and I stood together at the grave sites of her four sons, and I dared to ask her how she could survive such an incredible loss. My aunt's answer was simple. She said it was because she had to. God had given her Leon the longest, so she admitted that the pain of losing him was the worst. Recently, my aunt and I gathered together to stand over the casket of our shared son, Tracey, who died from cardiac disease on June 26, 2024. Tracey may have disappeared from the day-to-day life of my aunt years ago, but it did not stop her heart from filling the break. She had set him free years ago to give him the gift of life that now had been taken from the two of us!
As a little girl, I often attended church with my aunt. She always proudly introduced me to the congregation, and it was easy to see that she was in a house where she was loved by those attending the church and by God. My aunt has known nothing but hardship and has suffered physical abuse by her husbands, rape by family members, infidelity from those she trusted, and the painful loss of now five sons to death. Yet, her faith has never wavered against the tide which constantly beats her against the shore. When I think about her, there are variable feelings. Sometimes, I find myself being deeply frustrated with her because of her choices, including living in a home that I deem unsafe. But to her, it is a memorial to her beloved Larry. However, regardless of the moment, there is always an enormous amount of love for the woman who protected me against my abusers, who gave me the gift of motherhood, who sends me cards for unknown reasons, and who loves me unconditionally. Laughter can easily escape those surrounding her when she laughs at herself with a grin, believing she has just said something clever or humorous. When I review my life with her, my thoughts will always carry me to her love of gossip and the contradiction of a woman who is incredibly sweet but also capable of fighting a fight. My dreams for her will always go far beyond her dreams for herself because of the gift of her life to me. Instinctively, I am protective over the woman who has protected me and has loved and lost so much. I am proud of the strength and courage that she has displayed and the life lesson that she has graciously, unwillingly taught us all. She is an example of true faith in God's purpose, God's plan. Years from now, when I pass down those few mementos given to me to give to my great nieces, I hope they serve as a reminder of the woman who loved them wholeheartedly. And hopefully, when they are old enough to read this, they will remember the pieces of her that were worth sustaining!
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