Julia Davis Adams (1900-1992)
Information for this biographical summary was adapted from the Introduction by Bill Theriault, to “Harvest: Collected Works of Julia Davis,” Charles Town, WV: Arts & Humanities Alliance of Jefferson County and the Jefferson County Oral and Visual History Association, 1992.
Julia
Davis was born in Clarksburg, WV, July 23, 1900, daughter to the famed lawyer
and sometime candidate for President, John W. Davis. Her mother, Julia Leavell
McDonald, from Media Farm, Jefferson County, died three weeks after giving her
life. Julia’s resemblance to her mother would pain her shy yet brilliant father
and burden their relationship for decades.
Julia
Davis would observe: "He was always kindly, often abstracted, but I knew
then, and I know still, that looking at me hurt his heart."
Julia
Davis’ childhood was divided between summers at Media Farm amid a group of
"unrepentant individualists" and a family that quite properly called
itself a "clan" – and being taught at home by a stern grandmother in
Clarksburg. "Certainly I was not unhappy with the Davises, where I
received so much love and learned to love deeply in return. Certainly I do not quarrel with having been
taught to use my mind. But I was solitary in that silent house."
“This
was the grandmother who knew Greek and Latin, who debated politics and
philosophy with her lawyer husband, and who fought off the pleas of her doctor
and the preliminary pains of childbirth until she had finished reading a
chapter from Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
"For
the child I was, Media meant joy and freedom, freedom from anxious supervision,
from precocity, from loneliness, from all that in one way or another oppressed
my spirit. Children were a commonplace
on that farm. No one hung over me, no
one seemed to care what I did. I
expanded, running wild."
Bill
Theriault writes in his essay “Julia Davis:” “Summers spent with scores of kids
and farm animals, with uncles like John Yates McDonald, a dirt farmer with four
college degrees. Summers with her
raspy-voiced grandfather, Major Edward A. H. McDonald, an officer in Stuart's
cavalry who took a bullet in the throat shortly before the Confederate
surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.
“He
had kept himself from bleeding to death by sticking his finger in the wound and
then endured six weeks of frequent hemorrhages and a fractured jaw before the
bullet could be removed. This was a man
who ran his farm with the discipline and precision he had shown in the service,
except for his treatment of granddaughter Julia. He was incapable of punishing her.”
“As
far back as she could remember, Julia Davis wanted to be a mother. When she found that she was unable to bear
children of her own, she nurtured seven of them, and she shared her life with
three husbands. She also wanted to be a
writer, and when she took on the responsibility of raising children, she
frequently struggled to balance the demands of her craft against those of the
youngsters in her care. Her writing
also reflects her separation from her natural parents, for the characters in
her novels are frequently orphans, children separated from one or both parents
by death or duty, and women who carry on alone while the men folks are off to
war or on other adventures.”
She
would study at Wellesley and graduate from Barnard in New York City, with a
glamorous hiatus as the daughter of the ambassador to England in 1920, a time
she wrote of in her book: “Legacy of Love” (1961).
Her
writing career, according to Theriault, blossomed out of a project to translate
the work of Saxo Grammaticus, while living in Copenhagen.
Recalling
that first attempt to get a book published, she says, "I brought it back
and went around with this portfolio of big pictures. I didn't know that wasn't how you sold a book. Well, I went around with these pictures from
door to door of the publishers. And
sometimes I'd have to walk twice around the block before I could kick myself in
to say `Here I am and here's this possibility.'" She continues, "Eventually I saw the head of Dutton's junior
department. And she thought it could be
made into stories for young adults, that is teenagers."
Theriault
writes: “She quit her job in the summer of 1927 and returned to the Davis home
in Clarksburg for a few weeks. Melville
Davisson Post, a friend of the Davises, lived nearby, and this West Virginia
master of the detective story gave Julia a crash course in novel writing. Davis said: "He taught me more in six
weeks than I had learned in all the English courses that I had taken at all the
colleges. He really knew what he was
doing. He would tell me, `You need a
little more dialogue here. You've got
to build this up. You've got to build
that up.'" She continued,
"Your dialogue was always either to advance the story or to enlighten
people about the characters. It must
always have a purpose. It must always
move the story. I really learned how
much cloth it takes to make a pair of pants with him in those six
weeks."
In
her long life she wrote 21 books, four plays, and innumerable essays and poems.
Her
books include: “Stonewall Jackson” (1931); “Remember and Forget” (1931); “Peter
Hale” (1932); "White Justice" (1933); "Two for One" (1939);
“No Other White Men” (1938); “Cloud on the Land” (1950); “Bridle the Wind”
(1951); “The Sun Climbs Slow” (1940), which Theriault calls “a quietly powerful
novel that is probably her greatest work;” and “The Shenandoah” (1944), which
is still in print.
Theriault
writes: “She selected the historical novel as her niche, and her creations have
combined careful historical research into source materials with a narrative
style that eliminates the seams and wrinkles found in the fabric of more
scholarly history.” He adds: “I really
think her best writing has been about the family and the relations within the
family. And I hope future literary
historians will come to recognize that.”
Theriault
writes that, during the same period that Julia Davis tackled the slavery issue
in her writings: “John W. Davis was addressing the issue of integration in the
U.S. Supreme Court (1954). Although his
daughter and friends advised J.W. Davis against arguing South Carolina's case
opposing the integration of public schools, he took the case anyway. South Carolina's governor was a close
friend, and Davis believed he had the law and precedent on his side. Looking back on that period, Julia Davis
noted that her father, as usual, decided to take the case on his own and didn't
share his ideas with her. Likewise,
Julia developed her exploration of slavery independently of her father,
discussing this and other works with him only after publication.”
Theriault
continues: “The death of Julia Davis' father in 1955 and husband in 1956 marked
a hiatus in her career, and the loss of several members of the McDonald clan placed
an additional burden on her to settle family affairs. During this period, she reflected that "Sometimes there
comes a pause in life when the familiar forward motion no longer serves, when
new direction must be sought."
She was now the custodian of large amounts of materials documenting the
history of the Davis and McDonald families.
Reading
through this wealth of information, she recalls, brought her back to her
roots.
Julia
Davis said: “The older generations came again to life, this time in the round,
not merely as seen by the young.
Reading, I recalled my family in every sense of that good word, and
found my signposts for the future.”
“She
captured the essence of the relatives who raised her in ‘Legacy of Love’
(1961), a series of anecdotes that focus on her life in Clarksburg, Media, and
London” wrote Theriault. “ ‘Mount Up’ (1967), based on the diary of her
grandfather, Edward A. McDonald, recounts his exploits during the Civil
War. ‘Never Say Die’ (1980) tells the
story of Angus McDonald's flight to America after the Battle of Culloden and
the growth of his branch of the McDonald clan on this continent. Much of this material deals with early life
in Virginia, Ohio, and the area that would later become West Virginia.
Julia
Davis once said: "I always wanted to write novels and raise children, and
I've done both." Her father once told her, "You have a good mind, but
your heart is mush." To that she
would counter: "I wish he were
alive today, because I would say `Father, the heart paid off better than the
head . . . .The head might have paid better . . . . Maybe I could have written better if I had no other interests,
but I could not have lived better. I
couldn't have been happier."
Julia Dances Her Life Away
As
told the editor by “Doc” Master, Charles Town, September 12, 2002.
“As
I recall, it was the 20th the anniversary of the Opera House and it was down at
the Cliffside. We had a banquet, ten to a table and - this is an aside Millie
Shugart was 101 at that event. When she was about a hundred we had danced last
at Chuck Kisner’s 60th down at the KOA. Mrs. Shugart got so hot she
took off her wig and put it on my head and later willed me three wigs.
“At
the 20th of the Opera House, I asked Millie to dance. She was at a
table of ten.
“Julia
said: ‘Don, I want the next dance.’
“I
said: ‘Julia, you have it.’ It was ‘Take the A Train.’
“Julia
said: ‘You know I’ve danced my life away in Paris, London, Copenhagen, all over
Europe.’
‘Yes,
Julia I’ve heard all those remarks in the last thirty years and I’ve enjoyed
them all.’
“We
got out on the floor. Gosh, I whirled her around a couple of times and she
looked just simply beautiful, the most beautiful I had ever seen her in thirty
years. The lights glanced off her eyes and she just looked great, just great.
We made a couple more turns and then she said to me: ‘I think I’ve got to sit
down.’ I said: ‘Fine.’
“We
were walking back to her chair, Julia on my arm. She said to me: ‘Thank you,
Don.’ A second later, I thought she tripped over the rug on my left, but she
kept going down. She died right there,
in my arms. I picked her up, took her out to the poolside, I laid her on the
carpet. I put my ear to her chest. There was nothing.
“So
the last words in her life – were: ‘Thank you, Don.’ Those were the final words
of her life.
“We
had some great times. And as sure as I am sitting here, Julia planned it that way.
That
was a Friday or Saturday. The Tuesday before, she checked her self into a
hospital and stayed a few days.”
(She
told another friend two weeks before: “I’m finished. I’m ready to go.” And she
did with her usual flair. – ED)
Media Farm, Flowing Springs Road, 1906-1912
By
Julia Davis Adams
The
following, in Julia Davis’ words, is the Preface to “Harvest: Collected Works,”
reproduced here courtesy of its editor, Bill Theriault. It describes the summers young Julia spent
at Media Farm along Flowing Springs Road near Charles town with the colorful
McDonald branch of her family.
“Summer
meant awakening to sunshine, to hearing doves and the wind rustle in the oaks.
Trees have separate voices in wind: pines sigh like the sea; maples murmur;
oaks rustle crisply. Of course, the sun
did not always shine, but that is how I remember it. Children came to seven
o’clock breakfast without being called, because the food was there - cereal, fruit in season (we lived without
oranges), eggs, usually boiled; ham, cold or fried; possibly hash; hot rolls or
biscuits or cornbread, coffee, tea, milk, water. There were no dietary
regulations. Children rarely starve
when food is available. Freedom.
“The
basic family numbered nine and could rise to twenty-four. The mahogany tables could hold fourteen;
after that children ate at a side table.
These were not quiet people. At
all meals they joked and laughed a lot.
After breakfast The Major and three sons went to the fields or orchards
wearing long sleeves and big straw hats against the sun. Male guests joined them, also the tenants
from the small frame houses on the place.
“The
youngest son, John, might be at some university getting one of his four college
degrees. Individual tendencies were
respected. The three older sons - two
lawyers and a clergyman - lived in other states with their families, but
visited frequently. Other grandchildren
appeared. ‘The girls’ - two daughters
and a niece - turned to more domestic duties so diverse that only washing
dishes or making beds became repetitious.
Each had a specialty. My first
was sweeping some of the five porches.
There, if I could not do much good, I could not do much harm. The chickens shared them. We fed the chickens, husked the corn,
brought in the vegetables, cut up the fruit for eating and canning. ‘We’ was the pronoun we used, not ‘you’ or
‘I.’ If work was heavy, cooperative efforts would take care of it. Grandmother
ruled the kitchen, produced three hearty and delicious, if seasonal, meals a
day. When offered help, she would say:
‘You are honorably discharged.’ She
wore a look often seen in mothers of large families (now a vanishing breed), a
look of tenderness compounded with patience and resignation. Her strongest rebuke was ‘That is not the
way to be happy.’ Much later she told
me once that she had ‘had come to bread-making with tears.’ Tears had long ago been dried by facing
reality. There were no complaints. She
greeted every guest with open arms if related, with charming cordiality if a
stranger, her good manners so integral a part of her that tragedy, deprivation
or illness could not change them.
“The
house lacked running water, electricity, central heating, labor-saving kitchen
gadgets. Uncle Will made the fire in the wood stove that did all the cooking,
when he went out to milk the cows at 5:30 AM, Grandmother followed him at 6 AM
to bake the newly-risen bread. What the house had was an inviolable sense of
home, of a refuge that could not be taken away, of family, of love. The Major ran his home with discipline as he
had run his regiment, but the greatest sin was to distress the mother.
“After the important midday dinner, meat and
potatoes, vegetables, fruit, sometimes even ice cream and cake, came the hour
of rest. Even the work horses,
partially unhitched rested under a tree in a field. The Major slept on the sofa in the dining room. Grandmother sat
by a window mending or reading the Bible. The girls might lie on the parlor
floor since that was the coolest spot. Then work began again. Children might do as they pleased. Sometimes we carried lemonade to the field
workers. Sometimes we played house on stone outcroppings and ran if we saw a
copperhead snake. If we were lucky, we
got someone to saddle up one or two horses for us. There is a picture of me on ‘old Nancy,’ who taught us all to
ride, when my legs would not reach the stirrup straps. The Major, a cavalryman, thought that if a
child could walk, it should ride. There
were always other children, for any relatives who did not know what to do with
a child, sent them to Media, where there were so many, one more could make
little difference. My grandmother and
grandfather had married shortly after what was still called The War. His capital consisted of his uniform and a
horse. He did not have a great deal
more money in the bank when I knew him. They were lovers anyway. On their fortieth anniversary they held
hands and sang the sentimental love songs of their
youth. They had an education of the heart. Freedom, cooperation, love. Now we live in a
different age.”