October, 2007

Notes from the Old Noank Jail By Ed Johnson

MARY DAVIS REMEMBERED

Recently, with great sadness, we learned of the death of Mary Davis of Noank. The loss of this fine lady to her husband, family and the local community cannot be calculated.

My wife and I moved to Noank back in the seventies after having met both Mary and Howard Davis initially through friends living nearby. We fell in love with both of them immediately and they lost no time in helping us get oriented as new members with the Noank Baptist Church. They sensed correctly that we needed to establish roots, especially as we now had a young child to raise.

What we noticed immediately about Mary was that she had sharp eyes and rarely missed any details. She was protective of the neighbor’s young children, one of whom was constantly getting into mischief, but she was at the same time kind and forgiving of their mistakes. Mary also gave Howard considerable support with his work at the Mystic Seaport and always patiently encouraged his home projects (boats, naturally), which were considerable distractions.

Mary and Howard truly enjoyed doing the simple things in life together. Going to a SUNL luncheon or having a Sunday fish dinner at Howard Johnson’s were noteworthy events for both of them. Howard would frequently wax eloquent about the specific menu of the SUNL luncheon when reporting back in our church business meetings, much to the amusement of Mary and the other church members. The actual subjects of the meetings themselves were usually glossed over as a result.

What I remember most about Mary Davis is that, to me, she became a symbol of “the Women of Noank.” These were the people who went calmly and steadily about their business of raising families and caring for their working husbands. These were the same people who in their “spare time” would spend countless hours in places like Noank’s “Corner Closet” arranging the donations that arrived, heaped, upon the front door, so that some hapless figure such as myself would come in buy some of them.

All of the money raised at the Corner Closet went to support the missions of the Church and Mary, among others, never grew tired of putting in her time at the store. In fact, she was probably the main reason that I bought anything at the store at all because, Lord knows, they normally didn’t stock any clothes in my size and certainly didn’t stock my shoe size of 16 – 5E. But Mary always found some knick knack that looked expensive so that I could give an occasional “impressive” gift to my wife.

And of course, when my wife frequently saw through this sham, I was always able to justify it by saying, “Hey, don’t blame me. Mary Davis made me buy it for you. She said she thought you would like it. Do you want me to take it back?” Naturally, this tactic worked (almost) every time. The thought of taking something back to Mary Davis was out of the question.

We are going to miss Mary a great deal now that she is gone. She was a part of the Noank community that we found attractive and made us decide to move here from New Jersey. Mary represented an older, more stable lifestyle involving real community commitment, but without fanfare. She was a quiet role model, never seeking recognition but always receiving respect. We will always be grateful to Mary for allowing us to share in her life and the lessons we learned as a result. God bless her.