1927 - 2004

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• Birth	1 Feb 1927	Pasadena, Los Angeles Co., California
  Christened	23 May 1953	Fallbrook, San Diego Co., California
  Gender	Female
  Died	10 Jun 2004	Duck Creek, White Pine Co., Nevada
  Buried	3 Nov 2004	Ely City Cemetery, Ely, White Pine Co., Nevada
  Person ID	I79569	Brainard (Brainerd) / Foster / Fish
  Last Modified	12 Nov 2004 00:00:00
  Father	George Barclay HODGKIN, b. 2 Sep 1893, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Co., California
  Mother	Alice Bunnell "Honey" ELLIOT, b. 19 Oct 1895, Oakland, Alameda Co., California
  Family ID	F34676	Group Sheet
  Family	William Gwathmey "Bill" DAVIDSON
  Family ID	F34671	Group Sheet

• Notes

  ! (1) Birth certificate. (2) Baptismal certificate. (3) Marriage certificate. (4) Adelina Hodgkin Davidson, Steptoe Ranch, McGill, NV. (5) Account in unknown Washington, D.C. newspaper of wedding of Judith Ament Davidson/Maj. Anthony Walker (sister-in-law, m. 12 Apr 1947, Washington D.C.) (6) Confirmation certificate. (7) Wedding reception invitation. (8) Account of Wedding in "Pasadena Star News," Pasadena, CA, Sun. 3 Nov 1946, p.27. (9) Student's Record, Pomona College, Claremont, CA. (10) Unknown Chicago, IL newspaper containing photographs of Pomona College. (11) A. Christine Davidson Kraft (daughter, compiler). (12) Account of wedding in "The Altadenan," Altadena, CA, Thurs., 31 Oct 1946, p.7. (13) Alice A. Davidson Gedge (daughter), Riverton, UT. (14) Death certificate 252350 issued by Nevada Department of Human Resources, Division of Health, Section of Vital Statistics, 29 Jun 2004. Informant William G. Davidson, McGill, NV. ! Birth: (1,2,4,11,14) 1 Feb 1927. (1,2,4,11) Pasadena, CA. Baptism: (2) 23 May 1953, St. John's Episcopal Church, Fallbrook, San Diego Co., CA, by her uncle, Rev. W.R.H. Hodgkin, with her 2 daughters Alice and Christine. Sponsors Marjorie E. Wetzel, Burt L. Wetzel, William G. Davidson. Marriage to William G Davidson: (3,4,7,8,11,12) 27 Oct 1946, Altadena, Los Angeles Co., CA. (3,4,11,12) By her uncle, Rev. W.R.H. Hodgkin. (4,7,8,11,12) At home of her parents, 2534 Ganesha Ave., 4:00 PM, Sun. (4,8,12) Everything was in pink, even her wedding dress and cake. Maid of Honor was Christine Kayser. Matron of Honor was Patricia H. Hodgkin. Best Man was Milton Petersen. (4,12) She wore a pale pink net gown. Married in front of the fireplace in the living room, which was decorated with pink chrysanthemums and gladiolus. Her bouquet was pink roses and bovardia. Chris Kayser & Patti Hodgkin carried pink carnations. Sylvia Sia played the music. (14) Death: (11,14) 10 Jun 2004, at her home on Kalamazoo Road, Duck Creek, White Pine Co., NV. (11) Suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Had recently been placed on new medication, Namenda, and had receiving full dosage for 3 days. Husband was hopeful new medication was helping, and had had a good morning of discussion with her. He left the house to water a neighbor's flowers and tend to a few chores outside. When he re-entered the house, he found her dead on the floor. She had apparently died suddenly right after he left the house. No autopsy was ordered. (14) Cardiac arrest due to dementia, Alzheimer's type. Burial: (11) Arrangements made by Mountain Vista Chapel, 450 Mill St., Ely, NV. Remains cremated. Burial of ashes 3 Nov 2004 by her husband in Ely City Cemetery, 501 Mill St., Ely, White Pine Co., NV. Memorial service among family 5 Nov 2004 at graveside. (4) Known as "Gub" by the family. Her brother gave her the nickname "Gooby", which the family later converted to "Gub." (4) Had a nurse named Ottie while young. (4) Had a crush on her Uncle Phil, her father's younger brother, when she was quite small. During one visit, he informed her mother that Adelina should have her tonsils out. After they were taken out, the family went to visit a man named Ray FRITT in Berkeley, CA, who was the brother of a very dear family friend, Gladys SHEPHARD. Adelina mistook Ray for her Uncle Phil. "This man very nicely picked me up on his knee, and all I did the whole time I was visiting him was sit on his knee with my mouth wide open to show him that my tonsils had been removed." (4) She adored her grandfather ELLIOT, whom she called "Papa". She called her grandmother Elliot "Mamee." "I'd hear that Mamee and Papa were going to come visit, and I can just remember standing by the front door and standing by the front windows for hours, saying, 'When are they coming? When are they coming?'" Her granfather ELLIOT loved to listen to operas. "He would look at me at the dinner table, and he'd say, 'Someday you will sing Carmen with a rose behind your ear.' He had me pegged as an opera singer... We sometimes went with him (from his home iat 'The Acre' in Oakland, CA to work in San Francisco) when we were up there in the summer. I remember we watched them building the Bay Bridge. That's when the ferries were still running. And then sometimes when we were up there in the summer we would go to the city, and the ladies, my mother and grandmother, would get all dressed up in their gloves and their hats. And it was cold in San Francisco. The fog would be there in the summer. I had a plaid, pleated skirt I was made to wear. But we'd go over and we would drive across the bridge, my grandmother at the wheel, and we would pick up my grandfather at his office, and we'd go to lunch at a place called the Mona Lisa. I always had salmon. And we would do the things - we would go to the zoo, and we would ride the merry-go-round. ... And then we would drive out sometimes in the fields and we'd go along the wharf and look at the boats. And that was always the thing I liked best, would you believe?... These weren't yachts or pleasure boats. These were the working ships on the wharf, and I got a big kick out of that for some reason." (4) Many houses in CA, especially in Berkeley and San Francisco, were on the sides of hills. "As a child I imagined that all these houses had floors that matched the hillside, an incline. So my recurrent nightmare was being in one of these things and rolling down the floor. That's because, partly, when my grandmother would go to San Francisco, as we often would do, there would be a big discussion about parking this big car on the hill. There were lots of hills, and I suppose my grandfather was very upset about it rolling. To this day I am terrified of hills in San Francisco. Going down a hill at speed just terrifies me." (4) "When I was a smallish child, there was a movie of the "Mikado" around, and I can't count how many times I saw that." (11) She loved all Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, but especially "The Mikado", partly because it was also her grandfather ELLIOT's favorite, and partly because her mother had sung the part of "Pitti-Sing" on stage. (4) "I remember Bod teaching me the alphabet and shepherding me around. It was sweet then. I still take his criticism very seriously. It isn't sweet now... He was all the older brother, and he taught me my alphabet and everything, and he was a wonderful companion when I was little. We shared cribs in the same room and we talked all hours. I mean, he was very important in my life." (4) She wanted to be a boy, and was told she couldn't be one. So then she wanted to be a sailor, then a cowboy when a relative in the Bay area gave her a horseback ride. If she could have had her way, she would have become a horse, and used to lie in bed, imagining hard that she was turning into one. (4) 1932, 22 Sep: When she was in kindergarten, their house burned down. Her grandparents on her mother's side were visiting, "My brother and I, Barclay and I, had smelled gas when we went to bed, and nobody paid any attention. The furnace had ignited the gas that had leaked up in the walls. ... This was about 1 or 2 in the moening. Everybody would have been burned if it had happened earlier. The furnace blew up, and the floor came up in a big cone, and blew a grand piano out the front door and across the street. The neighbors all turned over in bed, and said, 'Oh, the HODGKINs are brewing again.' It was during the Depression. Then the front page of the 'L.A. Times' had an article about this. It was on the big center of the front page, and on the side in a little column, it said, 'Franklin Delano ROOSEVELT Visits California.' My father pulled me out of bed, I know, and carried me down the stairs, in smoke and flames." She remembers being carried down the stairs as an oil painting above her was eaten by the flames. (4) After the fire, the family moved down the street to the LUDLOW house. (4) At the time of the Long Beach earthquake, "Grandma (her mother) and Barclay and I were riding along in an automobile. This was shortly after the fire. And the people were standing out in the street looking at the sky. And Grandma wondered why, what was going on? Here it was an earthquake and they were all standing out looking at the sky. We didn't feel it because we were in a car." (4) 1937, 16 May: The family was still living in the LUDLOW house. "I can recall that my grandparents were down there in Altadena when a phone call came, and Aunt Dana had killed herself. ... So I recall we all packed up, at least my mother and Barclay and I, and went up to Santa Barbara where Uncle Bill was living in a house out on the cliff, to keep him company that summer. We stayed, Bod and I, in kind of a little guest room place. It was in the 100's... it was a very hot summer, and I remember it was a very miserable summer." (4) Her father would take her hiking and riding. "Every morning he'd get up early, and he'd go for a hike up in the foothills... He used to take me hiking on Sundays... He spanked me just once... I went in a muddy hole out in the lot, as I remember. I think he was upset about other things." (4) She was given a horse and rode it often in the foothills above Pasadena, CA. (4) Attended Eliot Junior High School in Altadena, CA. (4) "Webster's Pharmacy in Altadena was my home away from home, the drug store fountain where you had ice cream sundaes and hamburgers and things. I knew the pharmacist all my life." (4,8) Graduated from Flintridge-Anoakia School for Girls, Pasadena, CA. (9) Entered Pomona College from Flintridge School, Arcadia, CA. (4) Her mother's cousin taught English at Anoakia, and Adelina went there on scholarship. The other girls that attended were mostly from wealthier families. She was editor of the yearbook while there. (9) 1944, 8 Aug: Enrolled at Pomona College, Claremont, CA. Attended through the spring semester, 1946, with a 3.65 grade point average. (4) Studied Spanish at Pomona. (10) ca. 1945/6: Was attendant to the Sage Vet's Carnival queen at Pomona College. (4) Her father, while on a business trip in Chicago, was reading the morning paper and saw her picture in it as the queen's attendant. (4) 1946, Mar/Apr: While at Pomona, Adelina dated a man named Gordon who had been a captain in the infantry in World War II, and had returned to Pomona to finish college before going to medical school. He was several years older than she was. "He was rather a shy, nice young man. ... He was kind of a homely guy, but I liked him. He had suggested that I join a group over Easter skiing, and I'd never been skiing, but they were to go someplace. I don't know whether it was chaperoned or not. I mean, it was not an indecent thing, but it was a nice group of people. But anyway, it seems to me this was called off for some reason. Snow melted or something. So Aunt Violet had extended an invitation to come to Madera and meet her captain (Bill DAVIDSON). ... So I sent up to Madera. I got on the train. I think Gordon drove me to the train. ... I was kind of disappointed at the ski trip being called off, so I just picked Madera as a second choice. ... I guess (Aunt Violet MORDECAI) invited her captain to dinner the first night. I was only there for three days, if I remember. And he came to dinner, and he talked a lot. ... And then she'd arranged to have us go skiing, and I'd never been on skis before or since. Terrified going downhill. ... It's the last thing in the world I would ever do. ... This was up in Yosemite. ... we went back to her house for dinner, and she was very nervous, and seems to me she put the enchiladas in the freezer and the ice cream in the oven, or something. But we had dinner there, and then he was to take me to the train, I think the next day, and I remember there was some scramble about getting home. I couldn't get all the way home. There was a strike, or I don't know what had happened, so I think I got part way, and Grandpa (her father) had to meet me in someplace or other. Eventually I got back." (4) 1946, Jun: "I went back again (to Aunt Violet MORDECAI's) in the summer. Grandma (her mother) didn't want me to go up and bother Aunt Violet again, but I headed straight back the minute school was out. June. And it wasn't but a couple of days after that that we (Adelina and Bill DAVIDSON) announced our engagement, and I remember calling Altadena (her parents' home) and getting my mother after I'd been there only a couple of days, and just barely met this person, and she'd never even met him. And I said, 'We're engaged.' And nothing happened on the other end of the line. I said, 'You sound so blank.' She was just bowled over. She informed me that we had to bring him down to meet the family, of course. By then he'd grown a mustache somewhere along the line, and I believe he shaved it for the occasion. He also had something on his lips... he was wearing gentian violet for something he'd picked up somewhere. He also had his front teeth coming out. ... shortly after we met he had to have them replaced. ... Here I was in my second year of college and they wanted me to continue. So, anyway, we got... a late start, of course, And then we got hung up somewhere along the line, and they were waiting dinner for us, and I remember (her mother) had a pot roast, and we didn't get in until 11 o'clock at night. Aunt Patti and Uncle Bod (her brother and his wife) were waiting there. And they opened the door after waiting and sitting in the living room, probably having drink after drink waiting for us to arrive at 11 o'clock, and then here came in your father (Bill),... six feet five and a half of him, with these front teeth out and gentian violet, and I don't know whether the mustache was present or not. I understand that Grandma went back into the kitchen and grabbed Aunt Patti and she said, 'My God! I can't have THIS is the family!' And then later she just adored him. ... Then we were there a few days, and Uncle Bod was working at a radio station in Los Angeles. And he had dinner with us, and he was very outspoken, and he went back to the station, and then he called back... to the house and he got me, and he said, 'You know this won't last.' And I must have had my doubts, because I was just totally devastated. Of course, I thought Uncle Bod was God to some extent. ... This just shattered me. And I remember Aunt Patti took me out and walked me around the block and talked to me, and tried to calm me down. ... It sort of lasted. Forty years coming up. And Uncle Bod dotes on him... he really admires and respects him." (4) Later, when she went back up to Madera for a visit, "we drove back to Aunt Violet's house where I was living, of course, and he said, 'Let's go down by the river,' which was right below her house. I guess there wasn't anybody at her house. He didn't know I couldn't drive a car, so he stopped it on the hill without turning it off, and he said, 'I'll get out and open the gate. You put your foot on the brake.' Well, I didn't know the brake, and I put my foot on the clutch and went sailing through the gate and down the hill... He said he was never so scared in his life. He came running downhill because I was headed for the river, the San Juaquin River, and it would have been car and me and goodbye. (The car) ran into a tree; I still have a scar on my knee... I ran into part of the car. Had a big gash. He had to take me into the emergency hospital at 12 o'clock at night there in Madera and have me sewn up." (4,8) 1946, Nov: Honeymooned in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. (4,11) 1946-1960: Lived in San Louis Rey Heights, Bonsall, CA on an avocado ranch owned by her father. (5) 1947, 12 Apr: Was bridesmaid at her sister-in-law Judith DAVIDSON's wedding at St. John's Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C. Residence given as Pasadena, CA. (4) The airplane ride across the country was very rough and bumpy. She had had some strawberry pie at one stop. Later, she overheard another passenger remark, "I was all right until I heard that woman say, 'Oops! Here comes the strawberry pie.'" (4) Before her great-aunt Grace ELLIIOT died, "she was giving away her things. And her things that I received, and that very beautiful china set... that white china with the gold edge." (6) 1957, 6 Jun: Confirmed at St. John's Episcopal Church, Fallbrook, CA. Presented by the Rev. Hale B. EUBANKS. (4,11) 1960, 14 Feb: Moved to Steptoe Ranch, near McGill, NV. (4) The smoke and dust from the copper smelter in McGill irritated her. "I thought I'd left the L.A. smog behind." (11) There was no telephone, and the electrical generator could not tolerate the vacuum and the iron being run at the same time. The clothes dryer had to be discarded. The generator would quit running whenever it got extremely cold and the diesel fuel became too sluggish to move through the supply lines. Other times it just broke down. The day we moved there it was dark and gloomy, with remnants of the last snowstorm creating much mud all around, and the next storm was blowing its way over the mountain. The house was very cold, the gas refrigerator was empty, and the movers tracked mud in by the tons. Mom sent us into McGill with Dafd to buy some groceries. (4) Bill's purchase proved to be a bag of dried beans, something he recalled from his trail days on the MORDECAI Ranch. "I could have killed him." (11) Learned to love the ranch. She loved to drink tea, and she especially loved to sit on the porch on summer afternoons at tea time with "The New Yorker" magazine or a book to read. She went for a long walk each evening, followed by the family dogs. She exercised every morning in her bedroom. (11) 1995: Moved to a home they built on the road to Kalamazoo camp ground in the area known as Duck Creek, White Pine Co., NV, across the valley from the ranch. It is situated in the Schell Creek Range in a little mountain valley behind and north of McGill. Please do not claim our work as your own. You are free to use it, but please document your sources.