Homer Edward Davis

Homer Edward Davis was the father of Dorothy Marie Davis (Chuck’s maternal grandmother, who would marry Robert Earl Wildermuth in 1946). His full middle name surfaces from Dorothy’s funeral program: her mother is given as “Bessie Marie Davis and Homer Edward Davis.”

Homer at three, with his parents — c. 1902

Homer was born 8 February 1900 at Crooked Tree, Noble County, Ohio to William Armstrong Davis (1859-1931) and Victoria Anna Way Davis (1874-1903). His mother — daughter of Edward E. Way (1851-1924) and Tacy Elizabeth Matthews (1848-1902), and granddaughter of the English-immigrant Edward Taylor Way of the Isle of Wight — died on 26 June 1903 at age 29, leaving three-year-old Homer to be raised by his father (who later remarried) in Washington County. The Way family connection enters the Davis line through his mother. Homer himself appears in the 25 September 1901 Belle Way wedding portrait as a toddler — figure #11 in the family identification legend, labeled “Homer E. Davis (father)” from his future daughter Dorothy Davis Wildermuth’s perspective.

The studio portrait that survives in the family papers, shared by Chuck in June 2026, is the only known photograph of Homer with both parents together. He is at center in the frame, about two years old, in an Edwardian-era child’s salmon-colored dress (the period convention for very young children before breeching), wide eyes looking directly at the camera. Victoria is at left; William at right.

The frame is, by date, the earliest photograph of any of Chuck’s maternal-line direct ancestors in the archive.

The Waterford working life — and Standard Oil of Ohio

At the time of Dorothy’s birth on 24 February 1925, Homer was twenty-five, working as a truck driver out of Waterford, Washington County, Ohio. His 1982 obituary records that he later went on to a long career at the Standard Oil Company of Ohio — the transition from independent truck driver to Standard Oil employee likely tracks the 1920s-1930s consolidation of the Ohio petroleum-distribution industry into the regional Standard Oil subsidiary.

He married Bessie M. Hill on 29 May 1923 (per his 1982 obituary); their first child, Mary Louise, followed in January 1924. Bessie died 29 May 1950 — on their 27th wedding anniversary, to the day. Homer and Bessie’s four children:

• Mary Louise Davis (b. January 1924; m. Jack Murdock, of Twenty-Nine Palms, California)
• Dorothy Marie Davis (b. 24 February 1925; m. Robert Earl Wildermuth) — Chuck’s grandmother
• Betty Jean Davis (b. 16 March 1926; m. Norman Wolfe, of Marietta)
• William Harvey Davis Sr. (b. 20 August 1941) — the “son, William H. of Westfield, Ind.” of the obituary

Homer with his son William Harvey Davis Sr., c. 1944-1945

Homer kneels in this snapshot — in a knit sweater and tie, on a driveway in front of a two-story clapboard house with a smaller white outbuilding behind. A small boy of about three or four sits on his knee in a winter coat. The composition reads as mid-1940s by clothing and photographic style.

A second, earlier frame — Homer standing with William Harvey as a toddler, c. 1943. This confirmed father-and-son image settles the identity of the boy on Homer’s knee above.

Chuck confirms (July 2026) that this is Homer with his son William Harvey Davis Sr. (b. 20 August 1941). The boy’s age (~3–4) places the photograph at c. 1944–1945, when Homer would have been about 44–45, at the Waterford-area Davis family home where he raised his children.

Homer with his daughters Betty and Dorothy in a hilly pasture, c. 1944-1948

A summer-day pasture snapshot — rolling hills behind, a fence on the left, a single tree casting shadow on the ground. Homer stands at center in a light suit and fedora, his hands clasped at his front. A young woman in a pleated knee-length light dress stands on his right (the viewer’s left); a second young woman in a white blouse and bouquet-print skirt stands on his left.

Chuck confirms (July 2026) that this is Homer with two of his daughters — “Aunt Betty” Betty Jean (Davis) Wolfe (b. 16 March 1926) and “Grandma Wildermuth” Dorothy Marie Davis (b. 24 February 1925), Chuck’s grandmother. Their clothing — the pleated knee-length light dress and the bouquet-print full skirt — reads as mid-1940s, putting the two sisters (who were born within a year of each other) at about 19–23 and Homer at 44–48. The hilly southeastern-Ohio landscape fits the Waterford–Unionville area where Homer raised his children. It is one of the few photographs in the archive that holds Chuck’s grandmother together with her father.

Homer in his fifties — a backyard family group, c. 1953-1955

Homer stands at right in this backyard portrait, in a fedora and dark suit with a tie. Beside him: a young boy of about eleven, two women (one with glasses holding an infant in a christening blanket, the other behind), and a toddler perched on a small white tricycle in front. The house behind reads as a postwar single-story bungalow with vertical clapboard siding.

The dating is fixed by Homer’s apparent age (mid-50s, consistent with c. 1953-55) and the ages of the children. The cast is open — this is most likely one of his three daughters’ families visiting from out of town, or could be Homer with his son William Harvey Davis Sr. (b. 1941) as the boy and a wife or other Davis-line relatives. The composition is the kind of casual family-album backyard snapshot the postwar small-camera era produced.

Homer with Betty and Norm Wolfe, c. late 1960s

Homer with his daughter Betty and her husband Norman “Norm” Wolfe — the couple who hosted the 108 Hillcrest Drive holiday dinners of Chuck’s childhood — beside a row of cars, c. late 1960s, with a young grandchild in front.

Homer with a grandchild at the Florida dinner table, c. 1970

After Marie’s death in 1950, Homer remarried on 12 November 1968 to Ida Roberts Drake (per the 1982 obituary). The second household was Florida-based — the move to Matlacha and Pine Island had already happened by the late 1960s.

This indoor dinner-table photograph — lace tablecloth, lit green tapers, yellow Fiestaware bowls, a corner cabinet behind stocked with brandy snifters, pewter mugs, and Depression glass — reads as Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner in the Florida household. Homer sits in a gray cardigan with horn-rimmed glasses, holding a curly-haired toddler grandchild (red-and-white-striped-sleeved jumper, eyes wide at the camera) on his lap.

The dating is fixed by Homer’s apparent age (late sixties to early seventies) and the small-format Kodak print quality, putting it c. 1968-1972. The toddler’s specific identity is open — possibilities include any of his eleven biological grandchildren or his thirteen step-grandchildren by his second marriage to Ida Roberts Drake. He died in January 1982, so this is from the last decade of his life.

The Waterford home and the Unionville fire

The Waterford family home where Dorothy was born is one of the photographs reproduced in Robert Earl Wildermuth’s 1990 Wildermuth/Fleming Heritage. The same document records that the family later moved to Unionville, Ohio, and that there:

In Unionville, while the parents were away from home, they suffered a tremendous calamity. The house caught fire and burned to the ground. This was a real tragedy, but with the help of friends and neighbors, they recovered, moved into a small shed not damaged in the fire while their parents lived in a poorly insulated one-room garage throughout the cold winter that followed.

Waterford High, Standard Oil, the Masons, and the Florida years

His 1982 obituary fills in the shape of a full life: he graduated from Waterford High School with the class of 1919, worked for the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, and was a Mason (Mt. Moriah Lodge 37 F&AM at Beverly) and a member of the Lower Muskingum Historical Society at Beverly. In later life he and his second wife moved to Matlacha / Pine Island, Florida, where he belonged to the Pine Island United Methodist Church. He died at Cape Coral on 13 January 1982, age 81, leaving eleven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren; Masonic services were held at the McCurdy Funeral Home in Beverly.

Sources: Homer Davis obituary, January 1982; Dorothy Marie Davis’s birth certificate, 24 February 1925; Dorothy Marie Wildermuth funeral program, 13 August 2010; Eesley/Wildermuth GEDCOM tree.