Anna M. Davis, joined Our Lord Jesus Christ in Heaven on Wednesday, March 30, 2011; she has been reunited in eternal life with her beloved husband of almost 60 years, Samuel, who preceded her in death in December of 2004. Mrs. Davis was 94 years old at the time of her passing. Born in Atlanta, Georgia to Joel and Carrie Foster on October 24, 1916, Mrs. Davis came to Chicago in 1920, at the age of 4 years. Always bright, she graduated from Englewood High School, at the age of 16 years, as valedictorian, in 1932. In the midst of the Great Depression, she was able to attend the University of Chicago for 2-1/2 years, studying anthropology and sociology. Lack of financial resources prevented Mrs. Davis from completing her college education, although she remained a lifelong lover of literature, biography, poetry, and music. In 1935, Mrs. Davis began a long and distinguished career with Federal Government Agencies, beginning with the Works Progress Administration in that year. From the commencement of World War II in December 1941 until the Summer of 1973, Mrs. Davis worked in various capacities for the United States Department of Defense, rising to the position of Chief Human Resources Management Office for the United States Fifth Army in 1967. Upon her retirement from government service, Mrs. Davis served as Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Political Science Department of the University of Chicago from 1973 to 1975. Mrs. Davis and her husband Samuel moved to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1981, residing on Waikiki Beach; the two of them travelled throughout the world from this base from 1981 through 1992, when they returned to Chicago to be closer to family and friends. During these 11 years, they visited Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, and the West Coasts of both Canada and the United States. Mrs. Davis is survived by her two loving and devoted sons, Philip (Rebecca Holbrook) and Gregory, her son Gregory's partner Miguel Chavez, her loving niece Dale Jean Robertson, and many loving and dear friends such as Elizabeth Bell Haynes, James and Frances Parker, Chassie Reed, and Hazel Garnett. Services have been held at Leak & Sons Funeral Homes and Internment took place at Oak Woods Cemetery on Friday, April 8, 2011.

Published in Chicago Sun-Times on April 11, 2011.