Family of Dorothy L. Davis

The Dorothy L. Davis Memorial Scholarship was created by Dick and Diana Glanville in memory of their wonderful aunt, to honor her passion for the nursing profession.

Dorothy Lovenia Davis was born and raised in Candler, a small mountain town near Asheville, North Carolina. She was the second youngest of 11 siblings. Upon graduation from high school, she moved alone to Atlanta, Georgia to attend nursing school at Grady Hospital, where she graduated in 1943.

She was immediately commissioned into the U.S. Army Nurse Corps as World War II was raging in Europe and the Pacific. After Army basic training, she was posted to Shanghai and spent the next two years in China, Burma and India applying her nursing skills under very difficult conditions. Dorothy had to fight the impact of these experiences throughout much of her later life, like many others of that era.

After the war, Dorothy disembarked in the U.S. at San Francisco and chose to establish a new life on the West Coast. She spent her working life as a practicing clinical nurse, mostly at the former Letterman Hospital in the Presidio. She remained in the U.S. Army Reserve for over 40 years and obtained the rank of Colonel. Always interested in bettering herself, Dorothy took classes at San Francisco State College, and received a B.A. in Education in 1961.