Mary Lyons "Mimi" Small Davis, a homemaker and former officer worker, died June 10 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson of heart failure. The former longtime Sparks resident was 85.
The daughter of John Howard Lyons and Mary Catherine Cavely Lyons, Mary Grace Lyons was born in Baltimore and raised in Ellicott City and Edmondson Village.
She was a 1945 graduate of the Institute of Notre Dame and worked as a clerk for the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co.
She was married in 1949 to Francis X. Small, a machinist, who died in 1970. After she married F. Edwin Davis, a Boeing Aircraft Co. executive, in 1979, she settled in Sebring, Fla. After his death in 1997, she moved to Loveton Farms near Sparks.
While raising her children in the Baynesville area, Mrs. Davis was an active member of the Eudowood Homemakers Club.
Mrs. Davis later worked as a sales associate at Hutzler's downtown department store and in the mid-1970s was an office worker at Allstate Building Supply Co. in Lutherville.
She lived in Sparks for many years until moving to the Charlestown retirement community in April. She enjoyed lunching with high school friends, attending meetings of the Red Hat Society, collecting dolls and playing pinochle.
"She was gregarious and enjoyed conversation, good food and crafting," said a daughter, Janet S. Selway of Canton.
Mrs. Davis attended St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Texas, Baltimore County, and Our Lady of Grace Roman Catholic Church in Parkton.
A memorial Mass will be offered at 11 a.m. July 25 at Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, Baltimore and Ware avenues, Towson.
In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Davis is survived by a son, Jeffrey A. Small of Rochester, N.Y.; another daughter, Susan T. Bryant of Joppa; three stepsons, Richard Davis of Akron, Pa., Kenneth Davis of New Castle, Del., and Rodger Davis of Woodbury, N.J.; two stepdaughters, Carol Bond of Lexington, S.C., and Lorraine Sincavage of Stevensville; six grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.