obituary
Homer Davis obituary, January 1982
Marietta Times obituary clipping for Homer Edward Davis (1900–1982): Waterford High School class of 1919, Standard Oil of Ohio career, Mt. Moriah Lodge 37 F&AM, Pine Island United Methodist Church; first marriage to Marie Hill 29 May 1923, second marriage to Ida Roberts Drake 12 November 1968. From Chuck's family papers.
The obituary clipping for Homer Edward Davis — published shortly after his death on 13 January 1982 at Cape Coral, Florida, age 81. Headed “Homer Davis” with a Matlacha, Florida dateline.
Full text
MATLACHA, Fla. — Homer Davis, 81, of Matlacha, Fla., a former Marietta resident, died at 8:45 p.m. Wednesday in the Cape Coral Hospital at Cape Coral, Fla.
He was born Feb. 8, 1900, in Noble County to William and Victoria Way Davis. He graduated from Waterford High School with the class of 1919 and was a former employee of the Standard Oil Co. of Ohio. He was a member of the Pine Island United Methodist Church in Florida, Mt. Moriah Lodge 37 F&AM at Beverly, and the Lower Muskingum Historical Society at Beverly.
He first married Marie Hill on May 29, 1923, who died on May 29, 1950. On Nov. 12, 1968, he married Ida Roberts Drake who survives with three daughters, Mrs. Jack (Mary Louise) Murdock of Twenty-Nine Palms, Calif., Mrs. Robert (Dorothy) Wildermuth of Casselberry, Fla., and Mrs. Norman (Betty Jean) Wolfe of Marietta; a son, William H. of Westfield, Ind.; three stepsons, Gerald Drake of Belpre Rt. 1, Glen Drake and Donald Drake, both of McConnelsville; 11 grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and 13 stepgrandchildren.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete at the McCurdy Funeral Home at Beverly where friends may call after 2 p.m. Saturday. Masonic services will be conducted at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the funeral home.
What the obituary settles
- Birth: 8 February 1900, Noble County, Ohio
- Parents: William and Victoria Way Davis — this is the public-record confirmation that Victoria Anna Way Davis (1874-1903) was Homer’s mother, the Way line that brings the Way family into the Davis line through her father Edward E. Way and grandfather Edward Taylor Way
- First marriage to Marie Hill: 29 May 1923 (anchors the marriage date that was previously “before 1923”)
- Marie’s death: 29 May 1950 — she died on their 27th wedding anniversary, a coincidence the obituary itself notes by giving the two dates identically
- Second marriage: 12 November 1968 to Ida Roberts Drake — with three stepsons Gerald (Belpre), Glen, and Donald Drake (both McConnelsville) and 13 stepgrandchildren. This was the second household of Homer’s late life
- Late-life affiliations: Pine Island United Methodist Church (Florida), Mt. Moriah Lodge 37 F&AM (Beverly, Ohio — the Beverly Masonic lodge), Lower Muskingum Historical Society (Beverly)
- The Florida move: “a former Marietta resident” — by 1982 the family identification had transferred to Matlacha/Cape Coral. Daughter Dorothy was in Casselberry, FL at the time of his death.
What it adds to the archive
The Standard Oil Co. of Ohio employment line is new biographical detail — not in Robert Earl’s 1990 Wildermuth/Fleming Heritage or Dorothy’s birth certificate, where Homer’s occupation was given simply as “truck driver” in February 1925. The trajectory from a 25-year-old truck driver in Waterford in 1925 to a Standard Oil employee through the postwar period to Florida retirement is now traceable through his obituary.
The Mt. Moriah Lodge 37 Masonic affiliation in Beverly closes a long-running Masonic thread in the family on the Davis-Wildermuth side — the kind of small-town Ohio civic and fraternal life that ran for the working-class Davis family across the twentieth century.
Sources: Newspaper obituary clipping from Chuck’s family papers, shared June 2026; corroborated by Eesley/Wildermuth GEDCOM tree, FamilySearch tree ID LRR3-RWV for Homer Edward Davis.