Ruth and Roscoe Davis
Ruth Steppe and Roscoe Davis began their marriage as farm
workers, milking cows on the Bain Daniels farm, behind our Grandfather Waller’s
place, the Coleman place now. Latter they moved to Lynchburg and she did
factory work and he worked for the Greenstone mining company until it folded.
Then he worked in maintenance for the city of Lynchburg.
One night when Roscoe was near death with cancer and she
couldn’t get him back into bed, Ruth ended his life with an ice pick. Ruth said
she had heard the Lord tell her to answer his prayer to end his suffering. I
can still remember aunt Alice Mae saying to me; “… but you know Bailey, that
was the Devil speaking to her!” The court released her into the custody of her
son Clay Davis, and she lived the rest of her life in the home she and Roscoe
had shared.
Their only child was my cousin Clay Davis. Before Clay was
born an infant girl died at three days old.
Ruth appears to be standing in front of a small garden. And
I think it is in the small backyard of the house they lived in when they first
moved to Lynchburg. It was on 15th St., only a block or two away
from where we lived on Buchanan St.
Ruth and sister Mary enjoy being together. Ruth wore her
farm worker clothes all her life; a plain cotton dress and a hair net.