Mrs. Patrice Bernell Davis

Patrice Bernell Davis was born August 12, 1965, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the fourth of five children born to Regina and Jerry Foster; and became big sister to Lori-Ann, who completed the family when Regina married Patrice’s step-dad Eric Oswald Cameron. As a child, Patrice was loving, compassionate, smart, and sometimes mischievous. She was always willing to share, lend a hand whenever necessary and was fearless. Her education began in Brooklyn, where she attended Philadelphia Academy and was skipped from the fifth grade to the seventh. A close family friend recently confessed to doing his best to sit next to her in class so he could cheat from her paper. Her sister Toni remembers coming home from Philadelphia Academy during a blizzard when Patrice was 12 years old, and she was 10. They exited the city bus with two other close family friends (Carlene and Michael Outar) who were younger than her and had to transfer to another bus to get home. Patrice put Michael on her back, held Carlene’s hand and Toni held Carlene’s other hand and walked two long blocks to where the closest bus was located to get them to her aunt’s house. Even at 12, Patrice was strong, brave, and able to make life-saving decisions not only for herself, but for those she cared about. She had a mischievous side too. Her brother Gregg recalls, when she was 12 and he was 14, the two of them would get up in the middle of the night to bake cookies and brownies and continued to do so until they got caught by their mother. The only way their mother discovered the mischievous occurrences was by the missing ingredients. Trece made sure the two of th6em ate all of the evidence.

Patrice lived in many places, New York, Florida, and after graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn lived in Monsterrat, West Indies where she operated her mother’s store and met her former husband, Thomas Lewis. This union produced Thomas Jerry Eric Christopher Lewis who is simply known as T.J.

After returning to America, she pursued a career in the medical field working in dialysis. Patrice worked at DaVita Dialysis for over 20 years, first as a dialysis technician, then as a licensed practical nurse and finally as a registered nurse when she completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Broward College in 2005. It was at DaVita where she met her second husband Roy Davis. He flashed his big, beautiful smile at her while sauntering through the clinic one day and they were inseparable thereafter. They did everything together from cooking, shopping, traveling to even working together. Patrice and Roy got married on September 7, 1997, and from this union added Reganne Ashley Simone Davis, along with Nickeshia Walker, Roy’s daughter, to the family. They were loving, devoted parents and did their best to instill Christian values and laid strong emphasis on education. The family moved to Georgia in 2011 to be closer to other family members.

Patrice, affectionately known as Trecie, Trece and even Patricey, grew up in a Seventh Day Adventist household and loved the Lord. She attended Philadelphia Church of Universal Brotherhood while in New York, served as a former youth director at Coconut Grove SDA in Miami, Florida, and attended Berean SDA and New Jerusalem SDA here in Georgia.

In her spare time, Patrice loved to crochet and created beautiful blankets, hats, sweaters, scarves, and booties as gifts. She loved to bake and spent countless hours in the kitchen listening to country music or reggae while making black cake and the family favorites carrot cake and cheesecake. She loved to shop whether in store or on QVC. She would spend countless hours in Marshalls, Home Goods, Jo-Ann’s or Macys going up and down every aisle afraid she would miss something that she did not need. She loved to travel and visited most islands in the Caribbean as well as Alaska and Niagara Falls. However, what Patrice loved most was her family. She had a very special bond with her husband Roy, doted on her children T.J. and Reganne and was absolutely in love with her grandbabies who knew her as Lola.

When I think of Patrice, I think of strength. Not necessarily the quality of being physically strong, but the ability to withstand great pressure, to overcome resistance. She sometimes wore that strength on her sleeve, portraying this hard exterior, but she was beautiful, soft, and kind inside. Patrice was expressive, funny, and lively to say the least and whatever she put her hand to do she did with all her might. She worked hard, loved intensely, and was determined to push through no matter what. These are all reasons for her success in life. She was an overcomer and put forth her best effort until God called her to rest.

Preceding her in death were her beloved husband of 23 years, Roy Alfonso Davis, who passed July 24, 2020, her birth father, Jerry Leroy Foster Sr., parents Eric and Regina Cameron, brother, Jerry Leroy Foster, Jr. and brother-in-law, Ronald Pearson.

Those left to cherish her memory are son, T.J. Lewis; daughter, Reganne Davis; siblings, Lavelle Pearson, Gregg Foster, Toni Foster, and Lori-Ann Gomez; grandchildren, Journee, Faith, Kymoni and Tre; and a host of nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, and numerous friends.

We miss you Trece, Trecie, Auntie Patricey, Cousin Patrice, Lola. We were not ready for you to go.

Who will give us that face when we are out of line?

Who will make cheesecake at Thanksgiving and Christmas?

Who will I speak to everyday?

Who will give those Lola kisses?

Who will spoil the grandbabies rotten and then complain when they won’t listen?

Who will ask piercing questions, listen attentively, and give sound advice?

But we will take consolation in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not precede them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Trece, take your rest, until then…