John Staige Davis IV

1931 - 2024

John Staige Davis IV

October 28, 1931 - December 20, 2024

Dr. John Staige Davis IV, of Charlottesville, Virginia, died following a sudden illness on December 20, 2024, surrounded by his family. He was 93 years old.

Dr. Davis was a physician and Professor of Medicine at the University of Virginia Medical School, where he chaired the Division of Rheumatology for many years. He was a caring teacher to his students, residents, and fellows; an accomplished researcher, specializing in Rheumatoid Arthritis; a stalwart defender of the University Honor Code; and a devoted clinician to his patients at the Arthritis Clinic. After retiring, he volunteered at the Charlottesville Free Clinic until finally hanging up his stethoscope a few years ago.

John, a/k/a "Deuces" or "Peepaw," was born in New York City on October 28, 1931, to Camilla Cole Smidt and Dr. John S. Davis, III. He grew up in Manhattan and Mt. Kisco, NY. Never one for sitting around, as a boy he wanted to be a doctor, a farmer, or a railroad engineer. He graduated in 1949 from Deerfield Academy where he learned to "finish up strong." He went on to college at Yale (Pierson College, class of 1953), where he majored in English and sang baritone in the Whiffenpoofs. After completing medical school and residency at the University of Pennsylvania (class of 1957), he came to the University of Virginia in 1958 for postgraduate training before becoming a professor in 1964.

While in medical school in Philadelphia, he fell in love with Frederica "Fredi" Reyburn Abbott, a schoolteacher also with roots in Westchester County. They married in 1956 and moved their young family to Charlottesville in 1958, where they would live the rest of their lives. After 50 happy years, their marriage was cut short by Fredi's sudden death in 2006. They raised five children, and around them grew 14 grandchildren, a loving community of friends, familiar traditions, and lives filled with service, adventure, and hard work.

Four years after Fredi's death, John met Audrey Anne Bluck on a visit to Bermuda, and they were married in 2010. Audrey and John traveled frequently, vacationing in Bermuda every August, and John quickly became a favorite with Audrey's children and grandchildren in England, where they took him on more than one foxhunt.

John had an astonishing number of serious hobbies, including photography; tennis and squash; hiking and mountaineering (he climbed the Matterhorn, the Grand Teton, and Mt. Kilimanjaro, and led family "assaults" on dozens of lesser peaks); baseball (he named his pickup truck the "Mel Ott"also most of his passcodesafter the Giants right fielder); barbershop singing (he joined the Jeffersonland Chorus in 1968, sang in the Free Bridge Four and other quartets for decades, and sang his last performance with the Chorus five days before he died); skiing (he drove his family in a VW bus to Mad River Glen in Vermont every March); history (he listened to veritable tomes on car trips, occasionally traumatizing his grandchildren); bicycling (he rode his bike to work for decades); and sometimes overly ambitious vegetable gardening.

But his most abiding avocation was chickens. Other than the school years, he lived his entire life in the close company of poultry and maintained increasingly well-appointed coops for "the ladies." He nourished mail-order chicks in his basement furnace room; campaigned mightily against rapacious possums and weasels; and gave away a Walmart's worth of eggs every year.

With all that going on, John never lost sight of his greatest love: his large and broadly defined family. He certainly kept them moving. He led them through Sunday afternoon chores sessions; annual vacations to Mt. Kisco, Mad River Glen, and Camp Noconomo in New Hampshire; magical sabbatical years in Milan and Geneva; visits to every battlefield and historical site from Virginia to Maine; and countless Awards Banquets, "Gala Festa" dances, Dirty Eights tournaments, pancake breakfasts, softball games, sailing expeditions, and biking trips. His energy, enthusiasm, and silliness ("flummery and mummery") were infectious, and over the years he attracted a multi-generational following of friends, neighbors, and extended family taking his joyful lead. Later in life he expanded naturally into being a grandfather and great-grandfather, bestowing a Dirty Eights nickname on each new little one, calling and writing a card for every birthday, and showing up for sports events and school milestones.

As he approached old age he never let up, and ultimately finished up strong. He kept learning, paid attention to details, and remained unfailingly positive. He visited his old friends and made new ones. He and Audrey became gym rats at the Boars Head Sports Club. He was the only conservative in his beloved Breakfast Club, where he spoke his mind respectfully and with a generous dash of humor. He attended nearly every University of Virginia home baseball game. He split and stacked firewood. He became a regular churchgoer for the first time in his life and grew to be indispensable at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Simeon, where he served on the Vestry, read Bible lessons, and supplied the goods for the Easter Egg hunt. He sang all the time.

John is survived by his wife, Audrey Anne Davis; four sisters, Saby Arnold (Terry Arnold), Diana Sylvester (Richard Sylvester), Roslyn Davis, and Elaine Davis; one brother, Paul Davis (Deeana Davis); two daughters, Susan Davis Bailey (Brad Bailey), and Frederica Eder (Michael Eder); three sons, John Davis (Dr. Susan Fischer Davis), Stewart Davis (Leah Wagner), and Dr. Rufus Davis (Dr. Beverley Call Davis); 14 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren, William Bailey (Brianna Bailey and children Siobhan, James, and Isabel), Eliza Bailey, Katherine Chiampa (Paul Chiampa and son Max), Charles Bailey (Alison Busch and son Odin Bailey Busch), Dr. Natalie Davis (Tim Duffy), Staige Davis (Dr. Jessica Gersony), Lucy Davis, Camilla Davis, Connor Davis, Frederic Davis, Simon Eder, Jamie Eder, Nate Davis, and Jack Davis; and countless nieces, nephews, cousins, neighbors, friends, and colleagues.

Dr. John Davis's funeral service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, January 4, 2025, at the University of Virginia Chapel in Charlottesville. Donations in his memory can be made to Charlottesville Free Clinic (cvillefreeclinic.org/donate), Rails to Trails (railstotrails.org/support-us) and Colonial Williamsburg (colonialwilliamsburg.org/give/other-ways-giving/honor-memory).