Nancy Hazel Davis

Personal and Family Information

Nancy was born on 18 JAN 1889 in Ellwood City, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Francis Marion Davis and Alice Arazina Matheny.

She died on 23 JAN 1965. The place is not known.

Her husband was Joseph Hemphill Wilson, who she married on 12 OCT 1912 in Beaver, Pennsylvania. Their seven known children were Bertha Jean (1913-1986), Alice Louise (1915-1984), Esther Mehard (1917-2008), Thomas Davis (1919-1991), Hazel Matheny (1922-2007), Helen Jane (1924-?) and Eleanor Adele (1927-2005).

Pedigree Chart (3 generations)

Events

Notes

Note 1

!Source: Daniel Shawn Huffman.

<p>What a blast: Dimple Davis saved Wampum</p><p><p></p></p><p><p>By Louise Carroll For The Ledger </p><p> Posted: Tuesday, December 1, 2015 11:15 pm</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>The newspaper headline read "Heroism of Young Girl Saves Village of Wampum From Destruction by Fire. Miss Dimple Davis Drives Wagon Loaded with Dynamite to Scene of Fire."</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>News was getting around about the amazing Dimple Davis. She was lauded for courage and resourcefulness in that July 10, 1910, report in the New Castle News.</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Dimple was the 20-year-old daughter of F.W. Davis, who owned the Wampum Hardware Store with his brother, Charles. As fire swept through Wampum -- consuming six houses, several barns, a blacksmith shop and a vacant store room -- it approached the hardware store and its inventory of dynamite.</p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Dimple, alone and unaided, hitched a team of horses to her father's wagon and loaded the wagon with the store's inventory of dynamite. She drove through the streets, between piles of furniture and crowds of shouting people, to the dynamite magazine nearly a mile away along the banks of the Beaver River.</p><p><p></p></p><p><p>She unloaded the dynamite, safely stored it in the magazine and returned to Wampum, where people were vainly battling to save their homes and household goods from the unrelenting fire. About half an hour passed and it was decided that the town was doomed unless a row of sheds and wooden buildings in the path of the fire could be removed.</p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Dimple went back to the magazine, loaded up "enough dynamite to blow the town to oblivion" and returned to Wampum. The newspaper report said "an intrepid Italian" directed the dynamiting, and the wooden buildings were reduced to splinters. The progress of the fire was halted. Wampum was saved.</p><p><p></p></p><p><p>According to the article, "With a smoke stained and perspiring face, Miss Davis unhitched her team, and quite unconscious of the fact that she had saved an entire village from destruction and perhaps scores of its citizens from death, went about the task of carrying the family furniture back into the house from the street."</p><p><p></p></p><p><p>She was born Nancy Hazel Davis on July 18, 1889, but everyone knew her as Dimple. She died Jan. 23, 1965. Dimple is on her headstone.</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>When Dimple was 14, she started working in the family business, the Wampum Hardware Store. The store was open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. She worked every day.</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Dimple was described as a person who had a head for business, and even more importantly, a person with common sense.</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>On Oct. 12, 1912, Dimple married Joseph Wilson. She became the farmer's wife, who worked by his side in the fields. They had seven children: Thomas, Bertha Beatty, Alice Miller, Esther McMichael, Helen Zeh, Hazel and Eleanor Wilson.</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>In an early 1990s interview, Dimple's daughters, Hazel and Eleanor, talked about their mother. They said she never talked much about her childhood or the fire. They described her not as a daring person, but rather as a brave person who simply did what had to be done.</p><p><p></p></p><p><p>"She never wanted any praise and never talked about the fire or her part in saving Wampum," Eleanor said.</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Dimple told her daughters that she worked in wicked Wampum. The family lived on the corner of Main Street, and the hardware store was on what is currently J.F. Kennedy Street.</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Dimple was against alcohol. She told her family there were beer gardens on each corner in town, and on Saturday nights after the men were paid they would go from one beer garden to another. She said there were fights in the alley next to the hardware store, which had shutters that they would close so they couldn't see what was going on in the alley.</p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Her daughters remember her as a woman whose family came first. They were a church going family that attended Wampum Presbyterian Church. Their father was a charter member of the Big Beaver Grange. They attended grange meetings and functions as a family.</p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Both Dimple and her husband were quiet people. Her daughters remember that Dimple never raised her voice, never spanked her children.</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Hazel remembered the worse punishment she ever had: "I had to sit in the little rocking chair because I didn't want to go to Sunday school class."</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Dimple always told her children, "You do not need to fight. Every problem can be solved by talking it over."</p></p><p><p></p></p><p><p>Dimple loved music and played the violin. She was active until she had a stroke and died a few days later at 76.</p></p><p><p></p></p><p>Some remembered Dimple as the heroine who saved Wampum, but her family remembered her as a loving mother who always put her family first.</p>

Note 2

Marital Status: SingleRelation to Head of House: Daughter

Note 3

Marital Status: SingleRelation to Head: Daughter