|
Cynthia Quentin Davis Of Jamaica Plain, died on August 9, 2022. Quentin, as she was known, was born on October 19, 1943 in Cumberland, MD to Horace Bancroft and Marian Rubins Davis, who raised their children to dedicate themselves to radical politics. She was the youngest of five and is survived by her loving brother and sisters Chandler, Mina, and Terry. She loved her sister Barbara and granddaughter Gavi, who died before her. Quentin is also mourned by her children, Sarah and Oliver, their spouses Aaron and Ayala; her four grandchildren, Rachel, Penny, Yadid, Reuben; her extended family, and a network of friends and community activists. She was active in Friends of Melnea Cass, a group devoted to saving the trees on Melnea Cass Boulevard in Boston, as well as helping to lead the Forbes Building Tenants Association and Health Justice for Boston. Proud of her ancestor, Norwood Penrose Hallowell, for leading one of the first Black regiments during the Civil War, which he called the War of the Slaveowners' Rebellion, she gave volunteer presentations about him in Quincy and elsewhere. Quentin worked mostly in Boston medical institutions and doctor's offices as a secretary; she also drove a yellow cab and worked as an accountant. Her Memorial Service will be held in the Boston area. Quentin loved to play games, from cribbage to Wordle, and she loved all her dogs, among whom her beagle Sparky deserves special mention. She dreamed of building a Stress-Free Park. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/bostonglobe/name/cynthia-davis-obituary?id=36199681%26utm_source%3Dfacebook%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_campaign%
|
Charles Styron
At Broughton, Cynthia was frighteningly bright, a virtual wizard in English, and unusually outspoken. Along with Bill Hicks, she was also a very good poet. The two of us graduated from Broughton and went north to Harvard and its sister institution, Radcliffe (which now grants a Harvard Degree). Although we were two of only three from North Carolina in our H-R Class, we never spent time together that I remember. Hughes Pope was at MIT, and he and I got together a few times, but Cynthia and I never did except in passing. Once after returning from the Peace Corps to Cambridge to study architecture, however, Hughes and I visited Cynthia, her husband, their new baby, and her father in Jamaica Plain. At that time, and apparently shortly after graduation from Radcliffe, Cynthia began to go by her middle name, Quentin, and she continued that for the rest of her life.
Quentin’s father went to Harvard, and he was a world class intellect and had the talent and erudition to teach at any university in the country. He was also a radical intellectual, however, who taught at Shaw because that was where he was able to secure a job. Quentin called him by his boyhood name, Hockey, which I thought was tantamount to revolutionary for a young woman from the South. She also carried his legacy forward in the form of advocacy from the time that she went to Radcliffe right up to the present day. Although she was an English whiz, she studied economics in college, and this gave her the intellectual leverage that she employed in her activist life. As it turns out, she came from a very politically outspoken lineage. Quentin’s paternal great grandfather was Norwood Penrose Hallowell, and she published a collection of his letters and papers that she edited. It is entitled Black Soldiers in the War of the Slaveowners’ Rebellion. This is an interesting title for those of us who are familiar with the more non-partisan designation for the conflict—The Civil War—and Hallowell’s title articulately telegraphs his sympathies. Quentin’s sympathies were the same, and she spoke passionately about Hallowell and his writing at the Annual Dinner of our Harvard-Radcliffe Class in the spring of 2014. I had the honor of introducing her—an experience that brought our connection full circle 53 years after graduation from Broughton. I remember driving her home to Jamaica Plain after the dinner, the last time I actually saw her. We spoke on the phone a few times in years after that, and it was clear that she was struggling with her health and becoming somewhat frail. Up until her latter years though, she was powerful, and in her adulthood, she became a genuine force for whatever she believed to be societally good.
HAIL CYNTHIA QUENTIN DAVIS HAIL