Victoria Anna (Way) Davis

Victoria Anna Way was born 27 January 1874 at Crooked Tree, Jackson Township, Noble County, Ohio — the eldest of the ten children of Edward E. Way (1851-1924) and Tacy Elizabeth Matthews (1848-1902). She died at age 29 on 26 June 1903 in Ohio, and was buried at Crooked Tree Cemetery, Noble County, beside her parents and siblings.

She is Chuck’s maternal great-great-grandmother through the Davis line: Victoria → Homer Edward Davis (her son, b. 1900) → Dorothy Marie Davis Wildermuth → Terrie Lee → Chuck.

The Way family connection enters the Davis line through her

Victoria’s birth surname Way is the documentary connection back to the English-immigrant Way family of Noble County. Her father Edward E. Way was the Noble County-born son of Edward Taylor Way (1812-1879, of the Isle of Wight, England) and Anna Ellison (b. 1821, Coppull, Lancashire, England) — the two English-immigrant founders of the Way family in Ohio. The newspaper clipping “Way family among early settlers in Noble County” — preserved by Chuck in the family papers, with handwritten margin annotations by an earlier-generation family genealogist — records Edward T. Way’s nine children with Anna Ellison: Elizabeth, David R., Mary A., Abagail, Edward E., Henry, Sarah E., Emily J. and William M. Victoria’s father Edward E. Way is the Edward E. in that list. The clipping is therefore the biographical record of Victoria’s grandparents.

(The handwritten note on the clipping — “Elizabeth, the oldest, was married twice. Her first husband was Lindley Yarnall” — annotates Victoria’s aunt Elizabeth Way, the eldest of the nine Way-Ellison children. Victoria, the eldest grandchild of that 1845-marriage line, was born in 1874.)

The 1901 wedding portrait — Victoria with her parents and her son

The Belle Way and Howard Wickens wedding portrait of 25 September 1901 is the only known photograph that gathers Victoria with her parents Edward E. Way (figure #8, “great-grandfather” from Dorothy’s perspective) and Tacy Matthews (figure #7, “great-grandmother”), her husband William A. Davis (figure #5, “grandfather”), her son Homer at twenty months old (figure #11, “father”), her younger sister Belle Way as bride (figure #3), and a half-dozen other Way-side relatives. Victoria herself is figure #6, labeled “Anna Way Davis (grandmother)” from her granddaughter Dorothy Marie Davis Wildermuth’s perspective. The portrait is the only known photograph of Victoria with her parents — and one of the last photographs taken before her 1903 death.

Death at 29 — Homer was three

Victoria died 26 June 1903, less than three and a half years after Homer was born (8 February 1900). Homer was a toddler losing his mother. The c. 1902 family portrait that survives — of William, Victoria, and Homer together, the three of them in a tight studio close-up, Homer about two years old in a salmon-colored Edwardian-era child’s dress — is one of the last photographs taken of her, possibly the only family portrait of the three together.

After her death, William Armstrong Davis remarried (the GEDCOM records a second family, F45). Homer grew up in the second household but his earliest years were spent with the mother who appears in this frame.

Sources: Eesley/Wildermuth GEDCOM tree (June 2026 trace) — FamilySearch tree ID GMLH-THJ for Victoria Anna Way confirms birth 27 Jan 1874, death 26 Jun 1903, parents Edward E. Way + Tacy Elizabeth Matthews (corrected June 2026 from prior placement as Edward Taylor Way + Anna Ellison — who are her grandparents, not her parents; the correction is also confirmed by the family-papers ID legend for the 1901 wedding portrait, which labels Victoria as “grandmother” and Edward E. Way + Tacy Matthews as “great-grandfather/great-grandmother” from Dorothy Davis Wildermuth’s perspective). The Way-line documentary context comes from the “Way family among early settlers in Noble County” newspaper clipping. The c. 1902 family portrait and 25 September 1901 Belle Way wedding portrait are both from Chuck’s keeping, shared June 2026.