Marjorie Nadine Davis

Marjorie Nadine Davis resided in Olympia, Washington for three-quarters of her long life and yet she maintained that people and horses were better looking back in Arkansas where she grew up. She was born on February 6, 1930, and died at home of natural causes on June 27, 2025. Called Nadine by family and friends, she was born and raised in Lamar, Arkansas, the only child of Maxie May (Reynolds) and John Colburn Metcalf. After graduating as the salutatorian of her 1948 high school class, Nadine attended one year at Arkansas Tech and served as Miss Johnson County of 1949. (She wanted to continue her education, but lacked funds due to her father’s accidental death when she was fifteen.) The following year, she married Eddie Park Davis, also from a Scots-Irish-English-Welsh family that hailed from Arkansas, and they moved to McCleary, Washington to be near his family and his job at the mill.

After a few years in McCleary and Shelton, in 1956 Nadine and Eddie relocated to Olympia where they raised four children in the Bigelow Park neighborhood. They continued to reside in Northeast Olympia until her death one week before their seventy-fifth wedding anniversary. Eddie describes his wife as a woman whose beautiful smile, poise, and kind manners made her welcome everywhere. She was a capable homemaker, and a loving and loyal wife and mother who was always ready to work hard on family activities. Her children grew up with her stories about her extended family, various horses, and how her father had taken her to sit outside the Black Baptist Church to listen to the singing.

As a young woman, Nadine clerked at a Sterling store in Clarksville, Arkansas, and after moving to McCleary, she worked as a switchboard operator for the Simpson Mill. In mid-life, Nadine was employed for fifteen years as a teller for Seattle Trust Bank, and she also did some bookkeeping. She was an avid reader, and a serious bowler, and she enjoyed taking classes at the Evergreen State College. She kept her lovely singing voice into old age along with a bit of her southern accent. She delighted in spending time with family and described herself as a rich woman. Though ill health had prevented her from active participation in a church for a number of years, she was always a woman of faith.

Nadine is survived by her husband, Eddie Park Davis, and by their children: Barbara Ann Davis, Myra Sue Davis, Pamela Maxine Taggart (George), and Michael Edward Davis (Janie). She is also survived by her adored grandchildren Dylan Davis-Bloom (Keila), Cutter Park Taggart, Colburn Daniel Davis, Conrad Davis Pisaro (Natalie), Benjamin Davis-Bloom (Julia), Christopher Davis (Colleen), and Carol Nadine Davis, along with nine great-grandchildren. Each grandchild felt like they were Nana’s favorite. Nadine was laid to rest at the McCleary Cemetery alongside her mother, her in-laws, and many families from Arkansas.