The Callans and McClarys, by John Edward Callan - Callanworld

The Callans and McClarys
Mother Mother and and Daughter
Daughter
These pictures were taken of Grandma
Davis around 1961-62, soon before
Beth, Nancy McClary’s mother, entered
the convent.
“When I was looking at negatives 1
didn’t realize that the one picture was
of me,” says Beth Davis. “ I thought it
was another of Mom. People who knew
Mom well have always said I looked
like her but 1 guess 1 never realized
how much.
“I should have realized that the picture
couldn’t have been Mom because she
would never have posed for a picture
wearing shorts. She would wear shorts
around the house but would never go
in public with then. I remember one
year when she and 1 were going up to
see Bob in Wisconsin or Chicago she
wore shorts because it was hot driving
but when ever she got out of the car she
would put on a skirt she kept in the
back seat. I never understood because she really did have good looking legs. John always used to tell her she wasn’t bad looking for an old lady. That really endeared him to
her.”
that was used to get the tar off
left him raw.
Ask both Bob and John
about putting things in gas tanks,
like rocks and water. You might
find those stories interesting.
Bertha Bertha Elizabeth Elizabeth Murray Murray
Murray
was born on 10 July 1909 in
Evansville, Ind. She died on 23
Jul 1966 in Boonville, Mo. She
was buried on 25 July 1966 in
Boonville, Mo. She resided in
Boonville Mo. She was employed
as in Bookkeeper. Her
son Robert Murray Davis had
many warm memories of her,
which he recorded in a letter to
the family, which is excerpted in
the following paragraphs.
“When I was born, September
4, 1934, my mother was just
over 25, and my memories of
her go back to the time I was 2
or 3. I can remember, when we
were living in Arkansas City,
Kansas, in an apartment on the
second floor over a store, asking
her to come from the other
room and see something I was
doing/ and she replied that she
could see. I wondered how she
could see through walls. Another
memory: her running me down
in Coffeyville, Kansas, while I
was looking in a store window. I
don’t remember wandering off,
but I must have. And of her
trying to find me when I was
playing with some kind of do-
~ 90 ~
mestic animal on the farm in
Missouri. However, my first
coherent memories of her come
from the period after we had
moved to Boonville some time
before the summer of 1939. By
that time, she was pregnant with
John, something I failed to
notice.
“What I remember from
this period, and summarizing
from my childhood, until the
time I went to college, follows.
“Bertha Elizabeth Murray
Davis (she tried to forget the first
name, which was also her
mother’s, and never forgot the
third, which was her father’s) was
a very active woman, probably
about 5 ‘6" .or 7" , dark hair,
slender but not skinny. As a girl
she had apparently been very
active— in fact, her left arm was
shorter than her right because
she had broken it 3 times (her
right only once), and she could
not straighten it. She was reportedly
an excellent horsewoman,
except when she was breaking
her arm, and she claims to have
ridden horses that her brother
Bob (older by a year and a
week, July 3, 1908 to July 10,
1909) would not attempt. She
was also a good dancer and tried
to teach high school kids the
Charleston in the late 40 ‘s and
early 50 ‘s. When she was in her
late 40 ‘s or even older, she
could stand flat on one foot and