Reverend Glenda Davis

Reverend Glenda Davis sat down with me for Heroes I Know.

I met her at my mom's house. Social club. Passing through. Something about her. Parents from Headland. Both sides. Father was career Navy. She was born in San Diego. Texas. Illinois. Pennsylvania. Panama Canal Zone. That is where she started school. Jacksonville is where she grew up. Three Navy bases. Daddy moved between them.

Legg-Perthes. Right hip. Ages three to seven. Body cast. Then a brace. Private tutor at home. She got ahead. Graduated early. Future Teachers. Rainbow Girls. Mom Betty. Southern Baptist. Training Union. Bible verses she still has.

Florida State. Seventeen when she met Marvin. Hovering parents. She did not know how to iron. Roommate had to threaten her to clean a coffee cup. Marvin taught her to cook. He was ROTC. Vietnam. They married in the middle of senior year so they would have a date he would be there.

Orlando Air Force Base. Winter Park. One-bedroom upstairs. He went to Denver for training. She had never spent a night alone. They had a beagle puppy. Chewed the end table. Dug the couch. She would not put him on a leash. She told the minister she was in hell right now. He talked about heaven. No help.

A friend's mother had studied Unity thirty-five years. Letters two or three times a week. Beautiful handwriting. God Is the Answer. Meet It With Faith. Lessons in Truth. 1967 until that woman passed in 1985. That is how Glenda found New Thought.

She taught first grade. Yoga. Montessori about ten years. Ministerial school. In 2013 she helped start the Montessori school in Dothan. Janet lived in Japan and then Antibes on the French Riviera twenty-six years. Now Boulder. Glenda paints acrylics with a local artist who has taught fifty years. She wants to try watercolor next.

Three red MGBs. Daddy had promised a little red sports car if she graduated. He spent it on the wedding. Later Marvin bought a red MG. The DC Beltway felt like a roller skate under the trucks. Utah. Mormon neighborhood. She remembered Paul. Content in whatever state. She was living in the state of Utah. So she was.

God lives within us. Listen. Be who you are. That is the peace. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.