Adda Leah Davis

Adda Leah Davis was the last of ten children born to Scots/Irish mingled with German and Cherokee ancestry. In the rugged mountains of McDowell County, West Virginia she was the constant companion of her maternal grandfather until she was five years old. This grandfather raised one family in North Carolina and Davis' mother was from his second family of eight children. This grandfather taught Davis to read from the Bible and using the inside of a twenty-five pound bag of flour he taught her to write her letters and her name. This grandfather died when she was five years old and Davis became very ill and had to be taken to the doctor from the gravesite. She was diagnosed as having acute nervous indigestion and given something in a green bottle. She eventually recovered, but her grandfather left a lasting legacy of a desire for knowledge.

Education was an out-of-sight option for most of the children born on the tops of the rugged mountains and therefore only Davis and one sister went on to high school. This only opened a window for Davis and from that time she struggled for more learning. She earned her Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education from Concord University, Athens, WV when she was forty years old in 1974. During the years from 1953 through 1974 she taught on a provisional certificate and took night classes and went to summer school until she earned her degree.

By 1978 Davis had earned a Masters Degree from West Virginia College of Graduate Studies which is now part of Marshall University in Huntington, WV. This degree was in Curriculum Planning with a Minor in Reading. She also earned fifty-four hours above a Masters in Behavioral Studies to be certified as a school counselor in Grades K- 9. For the last eight years that she was in the McDowell County School System she was Counselor at Bradshaw Junior High School, Bradshaw, WV.

While teaching, raising four children, and attending school Davis wrote poems, stories, skits for the children, and helped with a school newspaper. Most of that early work was accidentally burned. Davis also became a Playwright Director for Oral History skits with Ecotheater and started the first play group in McDowell County. Her performers were from age eighteen to seventy-nine and performed in numerous places.

Davis was first officially published in 1986 in a West Virginia anthology titled An Now The Magpie, and from there she wrote for two local newspapers The Industrial News in Iaeger, WV and The Welch Daily News, Welch, WV. After retirement Davis was hired as Director of Economic Development for McDowell County, WV and worked there for six years before moving to Russell County, VA in 1993 where she has lived since that time.

Davis published her first book in 1997 titled Here I Am Again, Lord and that book is now in its second printing. Presently Davis has written and published fifteen books and is working on two other series, on of which will have the first book out sometime in the summer of 2016.