Early Years

Carol Esse Beery was born in Hicksville, Ohio on September 15, 1890, where her family published a small newspaper. Perhaps this was where she acquired her love of writing and strong sense of community engagement. During her formative years, her family moved several times between Ohio, Tennessee, and Alabama. It was while living in Chattanooga, Tennessee at the age of nine, that Davis began learning to play the piano and to write poetry, both of which would become lifelong passions. Due to her mother’s bouts with asthma, the family moved to eastern Washington where they homesteaded for a while before moving to Seattle in 1907.

Seattle and Eastern Washington

Davis graduated from Lincoln High School in Seattle in 1909, the first graduating class of the school, and was the class poet. She found an excellent piano teacher at the University of Washington, Professor Frederic Beale, and under his tutelage, developed a love for teaching music. She formed her own piano classes and began playing the organ in several churches. Her father’s passing created an economic crisis within the family, and they returned to their homestead in Okanogan County near the Canadian border. She helped with the family’s finances, traveling by horseback to teach near Chesaw, bartering piano lessons for needed food and supplies. Often traveling home at night, Davis and her trusted horse, Bobby, had many harrowing journeys, getting lost in the dark, and encounters with cougars and lynxes. She was eternally grateful to her beloved horse for always getting her home safely.

Davis moved back to Seattle in 1917 where she continued to study theatre organ and silent picture playing as she continued to teach piano. In 1920, she was offered a temporary position as a silent movie organist in Juneau. The offer came through the Wurlitzer Company who at that time was installing organs in theatres across the country. She decided to be adventurous, took the job, and never looked back!

Juneau Forever

Davis’s boat the Jefferson, sailed up the Gastineau Channel around 2 a.m. on a cold December morning with a Taku wind blowing. She was greeted by Mr. Spickett of the Palace Theatre who announced she would be beginning that afternoon! She continued playing at the Palace until the end of the silent movies.

In her search for wild violets, Davis was referred to the Thane boatman, Trevor Davis. Her took her by boat to Sheep Creek where they then took the tramway up to Sheep Creek Basin. There she found a field full of long-stemmed violets. A courtship began, and they were married a year and a half later in 1922. Together, they raised four daughters.

A woman ahead of her time, Davis did not want to give up her maiden name Beery. As she developed her professional work, she adopted the name Carol Beery Davis.

Music

While raising her family, Davis began to teach piano and organ to a generation (or two) of Juneau children, many of whom went on to become accomplished musicians. She often had up to 50 pupils a week! Beginning in 1930, she became the organist for the Northern Light Presbyterian Church and played there for about 35 years.

Her love of music led her to become interested in Tlingit music, and believing it might be lost, she began a years’ long endeavor of transcribing Tlingit songs, working with the help of the Russian priest, Reverend A.P. Kashevaroff. This labor of love culminated first in the short book Songs of the Totem published in 1939 and later Totem Echoes, published in 1984.

Writing and Poetry

Whenever Davis had a free moment, she would sit down and write poetry or compose music. Many of her poems describe the love and awe she felt for Alaska and its magnificent beauty. She published several books of poetry, Alaska Driftwood (1953), Home is North (1974), and Fiber Grass (1978). She wrote Alaska’s Flag (1964), recounting the story of the design and selection of the Alaska Flag. Tiger of Taku (1977) is a biography of the amazing Henry (Tiger) Olson who lived in Taku Harbor.  In 1990, she published Aurora Images which is a compilation of Alaskan songs and compositions. In 1983, Davis published her autobiography, Northwind Rhapsody.

Community Engagement and Activism

As a young town, Juneau was a perfect place for cultural development and engagement.  Davis was the founder and president of the Alaska Poetry Society and a member of Juneau Creative Writers. She also was a member and officer of the National League of Pen Women in America, Juneau Branch. She was Alaska’s Poet Laureate from 1967-1969 and represented Alaska at the Word Congress of Poets in Taiwan in 1983. In 1982 she was made honorary poet laureate of the World Congress of Poets.

In the 1950’s, Davis helped co-found The Alaska Music Trail, an organization that brought concerts to 18 Alaskan communities for approximately 20 years. They usually organized about four concerts a year and brought famous musicians from around the world to Alaska including Isacc Stern, Marilyn Horne, Van Cliburn, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Victor Borge, and Dave Brubeck.

In the 1970s, Davis  was very active in helping a group of Tlingit dancers travel to Washington, D.C. and Baltimore to perform for the bicentennial celebrations.

In keeping with her enduring appreciation of Alaska’s original inhabitants, Carol wrote a second verse to the Alaska State Song which acknowledges the importance and richness of Alaska’s indigenous cultures.

By the 1970s, the organ that Davis played when she first arrived in Juneau and loved so much was sitting in the attic of the old Palace Theatre. It had fallen into disrepair and was slated to be thrown away. Not accepting this fate, she helped organize the “Save the Organ Committee” to raise money for repairs. In the days before the internet, she researched and amassed a multi-page list of names and phone numbers of major corporations and their philanthropic departments. She spent hours each day calling each number and, using her charm, humor, and sheer tenacity, told the story of the organ persuading them to donate to the cause. Eventually enough money was raised to send the organ down to Washington for repair. Thanks to these efforts, it now sits in the main lobby of the State Office Building where a concert is held once a week at lunchtime for all to enjoy this magnificent instrument.

Davis was a one woman tour de force. She dove into every activity with boundless energy, passion, and humor. Her enthusiasm for fishing was unmatched. A weekly outing on the family boat, first the Cordelia-D, then the Sylvita became a tradition. The boat was always packed with family, friends, and visitors.

As many of her generation, Davis was fascinated by the possibility of the paranormal, especially ESP. One time, at a dinner with distinguished guests from the lower 48, she and a very skeptical guest decided to conduct an experiment right then and there. Davis would think of something, and the guest would try to read her mind. She decided to repeat in her mind over and over, “Please pass the sugar. Please pass the sugar.” After a bit, the guest exclaimed, “Carol, this is not going to work. I can’t get my mind off that darned sugar bowl!”

She also loved the idea of palm reading and phrenology, even if it was just in fun. Upon meeting someone for the first time she might say, “Caesar’s ghost! What marvelous bumps you have on your forehead!” Or, “Your nose says you feel for the other person.” Upon taking someone’s palm in her hand, she would say, “My, but you have such a creative head line!”

Carol Beery Davis passed away on July 19, 1990 just two months shy of her 100^th birthday. In her later years she was blessed with a constant stream of visitors to her house on E. 6^th Street, often completely unannounced. Sometimes it was local friends and other times it was people from all over the world she hadn’t seen in years. Of course, she would drop whatever she was doing to catch up with her cherished friends.