Mary Jones Davis, Camille Villaroel

Description

Mary Jones Davis is 101 years old. She was born in Scotland Neck, North Carolina in 1905 and moved to Brooklyn sometime between 1935 and 1947. Her parents had ten children, five boys and five girls. As a child, she remembers Scotland Neck as being “country”—her parents, Samuel and Jane, grew most of their own food and raised their own animals. She remembers a few people working in factories or for white families. She reports that she “didn’t know about differences between the races” until she moved to New York City as an adult. Ms. Davis left Scotland Neck after her parents died. A few of her brothers lived in Boston, MA, so she moved to Boston before coming to New York City to live with a married sister in the 1940s. She is a long-time resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant and has lived in the Kingsborough Houses since 1957. She worked in factories and domestic service when she moved to New York. A long-time church-goer, in 1957 she toured the country with Billy Graham’s choir. While working at a factory in New York, a white co-worker urged her to go to a Billy Graham revival. She joined his chorus and toured the country at the age of 56. She is currently a member of the Hugh Gilroy Senior Center and sings in the Senior Center’s choir. She has two sons and one daughter.

Record Contributed By

Weeksville Heritage Center