The Rev. Q.C. Davis, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Albemarle, N.C., who with his distinguished brother Judge J. Warren Davis of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of Trenton, N.J., is conducting a revival in their old home church at Berea, near Elizabeth City, this week is a man of many interesting parts.
How the Rev. Q.C. Davis became a minister is an interesting story, known to but few of his old boyhood friends in this county. Dr. Davis wanted to be a surgeon and might have been just a plain farmer the rest of his days, but for the fact that he went swimming one Sunday morning. It was a second Sunday morning in June 1887. A companion with whom he was swimming became exhausted and cried for help. Mr. Davis went to his rescue; the drowning many threw both arms around his neck and both went down.
The dead weight of the other man was too much for me,” says Dr. Davis, “and when I realized that we were both about to drown my whole life flashed before me. I thought of the old church back at Berea and recalled that it was then about the hour of service in the old church; I thought how much better everything would have been had I been at church that morning instead of in swimming. And then I cried out to God to help me; instantly the man who was dragging me down released me and both of us were saved.
“Now when you’re in a tight place like that and call on God to help you and help comes that instantly, you can’t help hitching up the thing with God. It gave me something to think about and I thought seriously about God for the first time in my life; I thought it was up to me to do something for God.”
Dr. Davis tells how he began to organize prayer meetings and other religious services in the neighborhood and of his beginning to win souls to Christ. Then he found a way, although married and the father of three small children, to go to Crozer Theological Seminary at Chester, Pa., where he was educated for the ministry.
Dr. Davis has seven children now, all grown and all successful men and women. How he educated these seven children on the small salary of a Baptist minister without ever going in debt more than $200 or $300 at any time, would make a story in itself. Here is how his seven children have panned out:--
The first, Rev. Floyd P. Davis, is pastor of a Baptist Church at Chesterfield C.H., Va. The second, Q.C. Davis Jr., is a member of the Norfolk County (Va.) bar and has served his county four terms in the Virginia General Assembly. The third son, Dr. Wm. Henry Davis, is Professor of Greek in the Southern Theological Seminary at Louisville, Ky., and the author of theological text books in use on two continents. The fourth son, J. Vernon Davis of Washington, D.C., is Vice President and General Manager of the Washington & Old Dominion Railway and probably the youngest vice president of a standard rail road in America.
There are three daughters. Miss Rose May Davis is a graduate of the University of Virginia and in a class of 130 applicants for license to practice law in Virginia two years ago was the only one to make 100 points on the examination. She is now Professor of Science in the Baptist College at Gaffney, S.C. A second daughter, Miss Emma Elizabeth Davis, graduated with honors at Trinity College, N.C., but put aside her ambition for professional career by marrying Dr. R.H. Holden of Durham. The youngest daughter, Miss Marie Davis, graduated at Trinity last June and is teaching in the public schools of Albemarle this fall.
From the Elizabeth City Independent, Friday, Sept. 12, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn83025812/1924-09-12/ed-1/seq-1/
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