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Mrs. Annis Davis

The estimable lady whose name introduces this sketch is a favorite with a wide circle of friends in Fayette county, being a woman of high ideals and correct principles, and a representative of one of the best old families of the county, also the widow of a well remembered and highly honored citizen of Bethel township, the late Lewis H. Davis. She was born in January 1851, in Fremont county, Ohio, and is the daughter of Joseph and Annie (Glick) Morse, the father a sterling New Englander, having been born in Vermont, March 14, 1802. Emigrating west, he located in Fairfield county, Ohio, and there he married Annie Glick, a native of that county. In 1852 the parents of Mrs. Davis moved to Winneshiek county, Iowa, being among the pioneers of that locality. The country was wild and wolves were frequently seen, and an occasional lynx added its quota of danger to the hardships of life in a new country. Mr. Morse followed farming there for many years and on the old homestead in Winneshiek county the subject grew to womanhood. She assisted with the manifold duties about the home and attended the neighboring schools during her girlhood days.

On November 1, 1875, Miss Morse and Lewis H. Davis were married. He was then a resident of West Union, but was born in Shelby county, Ohio, in 1839. He was the son of Cornelius and Matilda (Farrow) Davis. His ancestors came from Virginia to Ohio in an early day and there Lewis H. spent his childhood. In the early fifties he came with his parents to Fayette county, Iowa, and grew to manhood on the home farm a mile east of West Union. He attended the early schools, and his first marriage was to Minerva Van Dorn, whose parents lived near West Union. Two children were born to them, Lydia and Florence Davis; the former married H. L. McCubbin and lives at Reno, Nevada; the latter married E. S. Butz and lives in South Adelaide, Australia. The mother of these children dying, Mr. Davis subsequently led to the hymeneal alter Annis Morse, as above noted.

Mr. and Mrs. Davis continued to reside on his farm of sixty acres near West Union about fourteen years. This place was sold about 1889 and they moved three and one-half miles southeast of Fayette where Mr. Davis purchased a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, and there they continued to reside for a period of fourteen years, developing a fine farm and laying by a competency through good management and hard work. They then moved into a neat and comfortable dwelling in Auburn, but retained the farm. While living in the town of Auburn, Mr. Davis was called to his reward on September 9, 1906.

Mr. and Mrs. Davis were the parents of two children, Clarence C. and Alice. The daughter went to Lemore county, California, where he half-sister, Mrs. Lydia McCubbin, then resided, and there her death occurred in 1909, at the age of twenty-one years; she was a young lady of much promise.

After the death of Lewis H. Davis, Mrs. Davis and her son, Clarence C., a young man of excellent business qualifications, made their homes with Peter Snyder, whose sketch appears on another page of this work, and the three have had their home together ever since. For about four years the two families had their joint home near Arlington. In September, 1909, when Mr. Snyder bought a farm in the southeast quarter of section 35, Bethel township, they all moved there, and have continued to make this attractive vicinity their home.

~transcribed the Fayette Co IAGenWeb Project by Doris A. Smith