My friend Polly Davis is gone

If you have lived in Gordon County for any time at all, you will know at least one member of the Owens family. The Crown Jewell of the family was a very sweet lady named Polly Owens Davis. Polly passed away a couple of weeks ago at 92 years of age.

After you pass 80 years old, you do not hesitate to tell your age because you are pleased to have lived so long. Polly was proud to have lived so long.

She was married to her love Hughdon Davis, who was the Sheriff of Gordon County for many years and then Chief of Police for a long time after this. Hughdon passed away in July of 1988 and Polly has been a widow for 28 years. Hughdon and Polly were married for 47 years when he died. They were married when Polly was 17 years old.

Polly had nine brothers and sisters. I knew most of them and they were all top-level friends. I remember Hughdon personally and considered him a great person. Hughdon and Polly only had one child and he was a son named Reed Davis. Reed married Anita and they had two children, Brent and Charlin. She loved the children in the family and when her great grandchildren came along, she really enjoyed them. Brent commented that when his daughters were very small, he went to Polly’s house to pick them up and found Polly and the girls in the bedroom jumping on the beds.

During the 1940s, 50s and 60s particularly, Polly sang the alto part in The Owens Family Quartet made up of Polly, Arthur, Charles T. and Ernest. Polly kept a record of where they sang on what date and the songs that they sung. When they counted up the songs in her record book, the Owens Quartet had sung over 2000 songs at funerals alone. If you were ever in the choir at Heritage Baptist Church you could look down at Polly sitting near the front and she would be singing every word of the songs the choir was singing. She never needed to look at a songbook.

A few months ago, Polly was in a chair at the front of the church facing the congregation and her grandson Brent, my son, Kenny and Anthony Moore sang as a quartet with Polly and she sounded remarkably good. Needless to say everyone in the congregation stood when the song ended and gave Polly a standing ovation.

Polly loved to go to church. She was at the first Sunday worship at Heritage Baptist and would have to be confined to bed to miss church. Her seat was not reserved but it was no problem. She was always there before anyone else could take her seat. For several years she came in with a walker and walked to her seat under her own power. For the past few months she came in a wheel chair, but she was always there. From the first time she came to church to her last worship, she was always dressed immaculately. Her lipstick was perfect and every hair was in place. Her clothes were bright colors and very stylish. She was a short lady and she wore the highest heels that I can remember seeing on anyone.

When her husband Hughdon was sheriff, there was not a big budget for law enforcement in Gordon County. Polly went to work with Hughdon and acted as the dispatcher for the deputies around the county. The sheriff’s office and the jail were in the same building so Polly cooked all of the meals for the prisoners.

Hughdon and Polly had the biggest house in the family and everybody felt welcome to drop in without an invitation. The entire family is fans of Georgia Tech sports. Arthur and Ernest would have a big breakfast on the Saturday morning of the first Georgia Tech home game and all of the Georgia Tech fans in town were invited. I attended this breakfast two or three times. I did not get to know Polly very well during these times but I enjoyed sitting down with Hughdon and talking for a few minutes. On one occasion, Hughdon was very upset and I thought that something might have happened down at the jail. When I finally got him to tell me what was wrong, he was upset because he had blown a hole in the side of the motor on his riding lawn mower. There were not many riding lawn mowers in Calhoun in those years.

Polly was very proud of her grandson being the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church. She listened intently as he preached, and you would often see her nod her head in agreement with something he said. I always felt like I was a special person to Polly, but when you watched her before church, just about every person would try to get to speak to her and she made us all feel that way. She had a sense of humor that was extraordinary and would smile and laugh at everything she was told. She not only remembered the words of songs but she remembered just about everyone she had ever met. Her mind stayed very sharp.

We knew that Polly would not live forever, but we all hoped that she would. She leaves a big hole in a lot of hearts, including my own.