Dr. Davis

Dr. Jack B. Davis passed away early Tuesday morning July 7th in his residence at the Twin Lakes Retirement Community in Burlington, NC. He was 90 years old. He was born in Andrews, NC, a small town in Cherokee County, which forms the western tip of the state. He graduated first in his class from Andrews High School and entered the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in the fall of 1942 where he joined the Navy ROTC. By 1943 he was in the regular Navy. He graduated from the UVA premed program in June 1944 and was sent to Portsmouth Naval Hospital, where he helped attend to soldiers wounded at the D-Day invasion. In September 1944 he entered Harvard Medical School in Boston while still in the Navy. Upon graduation in 1948 he entered a residency program in Philadelphia where he met his first wife Monika. Jack was called back to the Navy during the Korean War and served on board destroyers in the U.S. 6th Fleet from January 1951 to January 1952. He then returned to his native western North Carolina, where he had a general medical practice, first in Murphy, and later in Waynesville where his children Karl and Karen were born. In the summer of 1963, the family moved to Chapel Hill, NC where Jack began psychiatry residency, which he completed at John Umstead Hospital. In 1969 he began his psychiatric practice at the Alamance County Mental Health Center in Burlington where he worked until his retirement at the age of 67. He had a second marriage to AlJean Jones and a stepdaughter Carolyn. Jack eventually moved into the Twin Lakes Retirement Community in 1999, where he met Billie Dixon, who has been his loving companion for the last 10 years. They enjoyed travel, engaging conversation, and their relationship with friends and neighbors in Burlington as well each others children and grandchildren. Billie was an encouraging and tolerant audience for Jack's musical pursuits in which he persevered despite progressive hearing loss. And though a fierce competitor in their frequent checker games, she was an ever gentle, loving, and supportive presence as his health declined. Jack remained intellectually active until the end-always learning and always questioning. He was a life-long Democrat and particularly concerned about the separation of church and state and animal rights. Ever the gadfly, those who knew him well understood that the delight he took in writing an inflammatory letter to the editor or offering a provocative declaration was more about the opportunity to discuss it with you than it was about the argument itself. These opportunities will be missed by his neighbors at Twin Lakes, the readers of the Burlington Times, and those by whom he is survived, his companion Billie Dixon, his sister Jane Swan, his brother Whitaker, his son Karl and his wife Maria, his daughter Karen and her husband David Tate, his granddaughters Jennifer and Melissa Davis and Rebecca Tate, as well as great grandchildren Kamran and Kassi, and many cousins, nieces, and nephews . A celebration of Jack's life will be held at Lowe Funeral Home & Crematory, Inc. at 3:00 pm on Saturday July 18th. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the ASPCA.