Dolores Lee Davis

Dolores Lee Parks Davis transitioned peacefully in her Sacramento, CA home on October 16, 2024 at the age of 97 years young. She was born on September 11,1927 at the home of her parents, Anderson Hal Parks and Anna B. Ellis of Watts, CA. Anna, the Homemaker, Hal, a school janitor and Minister, raised several orphaned nieces and nephews along with their own nine children of which Dolores was the seventh.

Dolores learned to play the piano by ear and learned to read music as a pre-teen. She played in church along with the family gospel singing group. Anna taught all her children to read and required weekly trips to the library. Before entering Grape Street Elementary School, Dolores evolved into a voracious reader. By age 11 Dolores had read every book in the children’s, teen and young adult sections of the library. Those books opened worlds and ways of life unimaginable to Dolores. She read fiction, non-fiction, geography, religion, even reference books and the world Atlas. She decided then that she wanted to go to college, be a teacher and see all the people and places she read about in books.

The year before graduation from Jordan High School, she got her first job as a Candy-Striper at the newly constructed Los Angeles County General Hospital. She would have to pay for her own way to college and the life she wanted. Those plans were temporarily interrupted when she met a young Marine Corps soldier from Watts who had served in the Pacific. In 1947 she married Richard C. Davis. They had three daughters and always made travel plans. In the early years, every month would include a weekend drive to places they had never seen before. In the ensuing years they traveled much of the world. She was able to see and visit nearly all the places she read about…making many friends along the way.

In 1958 Dolores entered Compton College. Even with Mom duties, she graduated from Long Beach State College in 1963 earning a degree in Early Childhood Education and K-9 Teaching credentials. By 1970 she had earned a master’s degree in Reading Strategies and Reading Specialist from Cal-State Dominguez Hills. She taught elementary school for 18 years in the Compton Unified School District before moving to Sacramento in 1975. She retired from the San Juan School District in 1988 as a Reading Specialist.

1996 She became a participant in “The Women’s Health Initiative” with the Department of Health & Human Services. She was in their outreach program and was featured in their brochure, “What Legacy Will You Leave Your Daughters & Future Generations?” After a bout with breast cancer, Dolores participated in many of the Making Strides Walks in Sacramento and the AVON Breast Cancer Walks in Chicago and San Francisco.

August 19, 1998, she joined the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op and volunteered as an office assistant in the Membership Office until 2012.

She served as co-founder and President of California Retired Teachers Scholarship Foundation Division #75 from 2001 – 2008.

Also in retirement, she volunteered at the Sacramento Literacy Center and South Land Park Montessori School. She returned to the piano learning and performing more complicated recital pieces from classical to jazz.

For the last three years of her life, she fought dementia and other health challenges. The short-term memory loss evolved to Alzheimer Disease which ended her life. She was preceded in death by her parents, her sisters and brothers, her husband of 78 years, Richard (August 17, 2024). She leaves precious memories for her three daughters: Saundra Davis-Polk, Marilyn Davis, Jacquelyn Davis & grandson Alexander Polk, family and friends.