Jimmie Davis

James Houston "Jimmie" Davis (September 11, 1899 – November 5, 2000) was a singer and songwriter of both sacred and popular songs who served for two nonconsecutive terms from 1944 to 1948 and from 1960 to 1964 as the governor of his native Louisiana. Although September 11, 1899 is commonly accepted as his date of birth, no official documentation exists.

Davis was a nationally popular country music and gospel singer from the 1930s into the 1960s, occasionally recording and performing as late as the early 1990s. He was inducted into six halls of fame, including the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Southern Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame (SGMA), and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

Early life

Davis was born to a sharecropping couple, the former Sarah Elizabeth Works and Samuel Jones Davis, in the now-ghost town of Beech Springs southeast of Quitman in Jackson Parish in north Louisiana. The family was so poor that young Jimmie did not have a bed in which to sleep until he was nine years old. His actual birth date is unknown. According to the New York Times, "Various newspaper and magazine articles over the last 70 years said he was born in 1899, 1901, 1902 or 1903. He told The New York Times several years ago that his sharecropper parents could never recall just when he was born – he was, after all, one of 11 children – and that he had not had the slightest idea when it really was." According to the Los Angeles Times, "Davis was not sure exactly how old he was, noting only that he was born around the turn of the last century." The birth date listed on his Country Music Hall of Fame plaque is September 11, 1902. However, it is impossible for him to have been born any later than 1900, as he appears in the 1900 US Census.