The Gift of Faith that Changed Our Family Forever: A Tribute to William “Bill” Davis

Today is December 9, 2022, and it would have been my Dad’s 100th birthday. So I thought it would be right to take a moment and reflect on my Dad, William “Bill” Davis. He passed away 22 years ago, and I guess I must miss him a lot, because I find myself talking about him all the time. He was the patriarch of our family. Husband, father, grandfather. 

At 19, he was signed to a contract to pitch for the New York Yankees. When WWII broke out, he enlisted immediately in the US Navy. He walked away from baseball and spent most of the war in the Aleutian Islands.

Toward the end of the war, he was shipped state side. He met my mom on June 30, 1945 at one of those Big Band dances in Brooklyn. She was 17 and he was 22. On July 16th, he gave her a promise ring on her 18th birthday, and they were married on October 27, 1945 - the day he was discharged from the Navy. He always liked to say he dropped the anchor and picked up the ball and chain. 

My dad was tough on the outside, but had a soft heart. When he saw us kids knocking around in the neighborhood, he pulled us together one day and formed the Flatbush Avenue Boy’s Club. He got us into baseball and basketball leagues. We held paper drives and donut sales to raise money for families in need. He always watched out for the underdog in ways that are too numerous to list here. 

He always had great fun with the grandkids, Matt, Steve, and Jessie. I remember one year when Jessie was playing softball, he took her out to the field and taught her how to slide into second base. He was only 75 at the time. Hmm, not sounding so old these days. 

I would say that the biggest decision he made was when, at age 53, this tough Jewish boy from Brooklyn put his faith and trust in Jesus (Yeshua) as his Jewish Messiah. It changed the whole trajectory of his life and the rest of our family as well, from generation to generation. So far, that’s four generations of the Davis family. 

Well, that’s as short as I can make it. How do you reflect on a life well lived in just a few sentences? I don’t know. I left out about 20 chapters. We miss him a lot, but as believers in the Messiah Yeshua, we know we will see him in the not-so-distant future.