Susan Palmer Davis

May 23, 1925 in Baltimore, Maryland to wonderful parents Thomas Myers Palmer and Theresa

Yaeger Palmer. Tom Palmer was a student at Johns Hopkins Medical School studying to be a

pediatrician. In 1930, the family moved to Jacksonville where Susan attended West Riverside

and Riverside Park Grammar Schools, John Gorrie Junior High and graduated from Robert E. Lee

High School in 1943. She then entered Wellesley College, and while there she met James

McCorkle Davis of Salisbury, North Carolina, who was a medical student at Harvard and became

her lifelong companion and friend. After they both graduated in June, they married in August

1947 in Jacksonville. They lived in Boston, Massachusetts for five years where Jim was in a

surgical training program at Massachusetts General Hospital.

In 1952, Jim entered the United States Army and was sent to Korea and Japan to be a surgeon

at Tokyo Army Hospital. The family joined him in Tokyo where life was very interesting. They

returned to the U.S. in 1954 and lived in Asheville, North Carolina while Jim worked at the VA

hospital in Oteen. They moved to Jacksonville in 1955 where Jim practiced surgery. Susan and

the family loved life in Jacksonville, especially their many friends and the St. Johns River. They

were also fortunate to enjoy many fun times with family and friends at High Hampton in

Cashiers, North Carolina.

Susan was a member of St. Johns Presbyterian Church and many other organizations, including

the Acacia Garden Circle, the Colonial Dames of America, the Junior League, the 20/20 Book

Club, the High Hampton Colony Club and Timuquana Country Club. She enjoyed family

gatherings, playing tennis and bridge, traveling, going to Jacksonville Symphony concerts,

exploring mountain trails, attending St. Johns Presbyterian Church, and anything musical, from

Michael Jackson to the Metropolitan Opera. Susan had a full, happy and blessed life. Psalm

16:6 expresses it well, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.”

She was predeceased by her husband of 56 years, James McCorkle Davis, Jr., her beloved sister

Charlotte Palmer Watkins, and her grandson, Thomas Palmer Baker. She is survived by her

brother, Louis Charles Palmer, her children, James McCorkle Davis, III (Mildred), Anne Davis

Baker (John), Katherine Davis Marple, Thomas Palmer Davis (Julie) and Rebecca Davis McKee

(Will), her grandchildren Edward L’Engle Baker, II (Lauren), John Daniel Baker, III, Alexandra

Keyes Davis, Susannah Baker Williams (Buck), James McCorkle Davis, IV, Julia Brooke Davis Lupo

(Ben), Rebecca Katherine McKee, Susan Palmer Davis, and Elizabeth Dills McKee. She was also

blessed to have eight great-grandchildren.

Although Susan cherished and enjoyed her many extended family members and friends, due to

COVID-19, the service to celebrate Susan’s life will be limited to her children and grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to St. Johns Presbyterian Church, 4275 Herschel Street,

Jacksonville, FL 32210, the St. Johns Riverkeeper, 2800 University Blvd., Jacksonville, FL 32211,

or the Jacksonville Symphony, 200 Water Street, Suite 200, Jacksonville, FL 32210.