Charles Gilbert Davis

1929 - 1993

Charles Davis, a violinist, taught in three Seventh-day Adventist academies and at Andrews University. A proponent of the Suzuki method of teaching, he used it to teach young children while at AU and traveled annually in February to Puerto Rico for several years to conduct workshops and teach classes of young students at the Adventist college there.

Davis was born in Deadwood, South Dakota, on May 30, 1929, the son of Blanche M. Gilbert and Harry B. Davis, an Adventist minister. A Korean army veteran, he attended Union College, where he married Alvida L. Brand in 1951and completed a music degree in 1952. They would have three children, Steven, Wallace, and Kelli.

He and started his teaching career in the fall of 1952 at Campion Academy in Colorado. He then taught from 1956 to 1962 at Milo Academy, now Milo Adventist Academy, in Oregon, where he also directed the symphony orchestra in nearby Roseburg.

In 1962 he became a member of the Andrews University music faculty, where he taught violin and conducted the orchestra until his retirement. A violin student of Earl Schumann, Emmanuel Wishnow, and Vera Barstow, he completed an M.A. at Colorado State University while teaching at the academy level and earned a D.M.A. at the University of Southern California while teaching at AU.

Following retirement in 1992 he resided near Berrien Springs, Michigan. He was living there when he died a year later on June 28, 1993, at age 64.

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Sources: Lake Union Herald, 24 April 1962; Albert Dittes, "Andrews Has Graduate Degrees in Music," 18 February 1969, 3; 7 July 1981; Obituary, Adventist Review, 31 March; 1994; Andrews University Focus, Autumn 1993, 32; Central Union Reaper, 25 September 1951; Northern Union Outlook, 25 March 1974; North Pacific Union Gleaner, 20 March 1961; Social Security Records.