Gloria Jimenez Davis, former UC Cooperative Extension 4-H advisor for Butte County, passed away in Walnut Creek on June 17. She was 98.
Deryl Waldren, who retired from Kansas State University as a 4-H youth specialist, was a longtime friend.
“I first met Gloria when I worked for University of California Cooperative Extension in Butte County 4-H from 1984-1993,” Waldren said. "I worked with and supported Gloria on 4-H exchange programs. Gloria was a great friend. Even after I moved to Colorado and back to Kansas, we talked about once a month for 33 years.”
Davis managed the California International 4-H Youth Exchange and the California 4-H Japan Exchange for about 20 years before retiring in September 1993.
Even before joining 4-H, Davis lived a rich and interesting life, according to Waldren.
“Gloria's mom was German and her dad was Spanish,” Waldren said. “In the mid-1930s, Gloria's mom took her and her sister back to Germany during the early years of Nazism. Gloria attended first grade in Germany before returning with her mom and sister to San Francisco in 1935.”
In the 1950s, Davis worked for the U.S. State Department's Foreign Service, serving in Egypt and South Korea, he said. She met her future husband, Keith Davis, in Iran and they married in 1953 in South Korea, where both were posted. Later they returned to the Bay Area to live and to raise their two sons.
“Interestingly they built a new house in East Bay in 1965 that Gloria still lived in,” Waldren said. “The cost for the new house was a whopping $28,500 when new.”
“I will miss Gloria a lot,” Waldren said. “I especially enjoyed our chats. She was sharp as a tack until the very end.”