Gertrude Davis LaBean

1930 - 2025

Gertrude Melrose Davis LaBean, age 94, passed away peacefully on Saturday March 1st, 2025, surrounded by her loving family at home. She had been under the care of Hospice Savannah.

 Gertrude, lovingly known as Nana, was born July 11, 1930 in Clyde, GA to parents Raleigh and Mildred Davis. She grew up in Richmond Hill with her sisters Reba and Quieda. She was a graduate of Richmond Hill High School, class of 1948. As a teenager, she sang in the school chorus and attended  First Baptist Church of Richmond Hill; she also enjoyed attending events at the Community Center–she became a great jitterbugger.

She was baptized along with her father and two sisters at age 14. Her father fostered in her a love for Jesus and she always pursued a life of being “happy and blessed”. She served  many years in the preschool Sunday school at Southside Baptist Church in Savannah and worked at Belk as a manager and buyer for the home goods department. She later worked at Largo Tibet Elementary school as a pre-Kindergarten paraprofessional and retired in her early 70s. She returned to Richmond Hill after raising her three girls in Savannah. In recent years, she lived as a widow and enjoyed being with her family and friends, walking, photography, making cards and being obsessed with word search puzzles. She was always sweet and kind to everyone and could brighten anyone’s day with her encouraging  words and compliments. She also loved to be silly and made us laugh when least expected. Nana was loved by all who knew her.

She was predeceased by her parents John Raleigh Davis and Mildred Cribb Davis and her sister, Reba Baldridge. Surviving are her children: Deborah “Debbie” Hodges and husband Lawrence Hodges, Patricia “Pat” Thomson Porter, and Kimberly “Kim” Dickey and her husband, Grady Lee Dickey, Jr.; her sister, Quieda Sisco. She had four grandchildren: Rebecca “Becky” Thomson Simmons and husband Daniel Newton Simmons, Matthew Carson Hodges and wife Jennifer Taylor Hodges, Ryan Patrick Dickey, and Caleigh Elizabeth Dickey and Cody Bowlin. She had four great-grandchildren: Jillian Lee Simmons, Taylor Edward and Ollie Merritt Hodges, and Blakely Gail Bowlin.

Memorial services are to be held Saturday, March 8th, 2025, at Richmond Hill Funeral Home on Ford Avenue. Visitation will be at 10 a.m., followed by a chapel service at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in order to Savannah Hospice, who took such wonderful care of her. God Bless.