James Carl (Carl, Jimp, Jim, Firehead) Davis

James Carl (Carl, Jimp, Jim, Firehead) Davis, 1927 to 2023, passed away peacefully in the Welland Hospital on Thursday, March 16, 2023, in his 96th year.

Adoring husband of his loving wife, Joyce Davis of Fonthill, Ontario, who passed away in 2022. Loving father of John Davis and his wife, Marty, of Grimsby and JoAnne Davis of Tweed. Cherished grandfather of Brendan and Andrew and his partner, Simone, and of Dylan, Caitlin and Maeghan and her husband, Wayne.

Predeceased by his brothers, Dillard, Edward “Red” and Billy of Georgia; and by his sister, Carolyn of Tennessee. Jim will be fondly remembered by his nieces and nephews, Steve Davis, Dwaine Setzer and DeAnn Rauth, Dale Davis and Sylvia Harmon, Steward McKenzie, Barb Chambers and Doug Chambers and their families; and by Merina Paoa, the daughter of Jim’s good friend, Orlando Paoa, of Easter Island, who learned English in Canada at the home of Jim and Joyce.

Jim leaves behind his brother, Jack Davis and his wife, Vivian, of Dillard, Georgia; his brother-in-law, Bud Setzer; and cousins in Georgia and Tennessee.

Jim was born in Dillard, Georgia, in the Great Smoky Mountains, on Sept. 2, 1927, where he grew up working on farms, trapping animals and getting into mischief. He graduated from Rabun Gap — Nacoochee School and attended the University of North Georgia before entering the United States Air Force in 1946. He served in the USAF weather service around continental America, in Japan and in Bermuda, where he met Joyce, a Canadian who was working as a nurse. From 1953 until his retirement in 1973, Jim worked in the USAF’s nuclear detection agency, the Air Force Technical Applications Center, with assignments from Alaska to Hawaii, California to Virginia, Japan to Iran, Europe to Africa, and from the North Pole to Easter Island.

After retiring from the USAF, Jim trained in hotel management and moved to Ridgeville in the Niagara Region of Ontario, the area where his wife, Joyce, was from. In Niagara, he served as the manager of the Niagara Parks Commission restaurant at Queenston Heights before retiring in 1984. Jim also managed his hobby farm with its orchards, asparagus, vegetables, horses and other animals. Jim and Joyce traveled a great deal around Canada and the U.S., and together returned to Easter Island where they visited the numerous friends Jim had made when stationed there for a year in 1968-1969.

Jim was very attached to the Canadian Legion and to the Lions Clubs in both Fenwick and in Fonthill, and served the Pelham Community Church for many years. He was grateful for the many friends he had in and around his Ridgeville hobby farm, at Pelham Town Square Manor where he and Joyce lived after leaving the farm, and at Lookout Ridge Retirement Community where he and Joyce last resided.

Family and friends will be received from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, March 24, 2023, at the Pelham Funeral Home, 1292 Pelham St., Fonthill.

The memorial service to honor Jim’s life will take place beginning at 11 a.m. on Saturday at Pelham Community Church, 461 Canboro Road.

Interment will follow at Hillside Cemetery.

An expression of sympathy donation may be made to Pelham Community Church at https://www.pelham.cc/. 

Condolences may be shared at www.pelhamfuneralhome.ca.