At 95 years old, Mrs. Davis is still full of knowledge about sewing, cooking, household planning, budgeting and nutrition.
“I can tell you all about it,” Mrs. Davis said, smiling.
The state EEA honored her in April for her 75 years of work, as both an extension agent and volunteer. She was presented with a plaque, and a certificate hangs in her honor at the Bell County Extension office in Belton.
“Mrs. Davis is such an incredible lady,” said Linda Fuchs, Bell County extension agent for family consumer science. “She knows so much, and I hope I’m half the person she is when I get to be 95.”
LaVoyce Doskocil, chairman of the Bell County EEA, agreed.
“She’s contributed so much to the EEA,” Mrs. Doskocil said.
Mrs. Davis was the youngest extension agent when she was offered the job in 1936, and she created the home economics department at Sharp High School in Milam County when she taught there in the 1960s.
Her first extension post was with Atascosa County, which was at that time one of the poorest areas of the state. She was in charge of 18 4-H clubs and 23 home economics clubs.
“I gave programs on photography and spoke on that topic at the state level,” Mrs. Davis said. “Pictures that were taken at that meeting were used on the covers of bulletins that were distributed throughout the state.”
Her next extension post was with Victoria County. There she said she focused mainly on cotton production and fabric crafts.
“It was also a richer county,” Mrs. Davis said. “There was quite an increase in salary.”
After a decade of work with the state EEA, she settled in Sharp, a community outside of Rogers, with husband Nelson. They raised two sons, and Mrs. Davis taught home economics at area schools and formed several home demonstration clubs.
Mrs. Davis’ roots in homemaking lie in her childhood.
“I was born in 1915 at Lake Reed in what used to be Milam County, out past Little River,” Mrs. Davis said. “We were farmers, and when my daddy died in 1929, it was up to me to do the heavy farm work.”
Alongside her younger sister and mother, Mrs. Davis cultivated the land and harvested the cotton and corn.
“We provided all of our own food with sheep, goats, pigs and hens,” Mrs. Davis said. “There were pecan trees, pear trees and plum trees too.”
So all of her meals, she said, were well balanced and fresh, “right from the earth.”
“Everything was germ free,” Mrs. Davis said. “We made our own lye soap and lard. There was nothing fast or frozen about anything.”
She perfected her sewing skills her last year of school in 1931, the first year for Rogers High to offer home economics.
“Having gone through the Depression, I saw that money didn’t grow on trees,” Mrs. Davis said. “You worked for what you got. And I learned that you should live within your means.”
Those are “common-sense lessons” that she wishes today’s high schools would teach.
“Nobody teaches students how to shop, how to buy and how to spend anymore,” Mrs. Davis said. “People don’t know what to look for in a label. They should really teach those things, that and marriage classes. Young people don’t know what any of that’s about anymore.”
