HOMER WOODHULL DAVIS
President of Athens College
Hellenic Times
September 7, 1984
Homer Woodhull Davis, for 30
years President of Athens College in. Greece, died August
27, 1984 at age 88 on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He was
born in Suffolk County, New York of early Long Island
settlers. He was a graduate of Hamilton College, from
which he later received an honorary Doctorate. He began
his lifetime career in American sponsored overseas
education, at Robert College of Istanbul in 1920, where
he met and in married 'Marjorie Weston Cook, who was to
be his inseparable companion for 56 years until her death
in 1977. After brief service as a teacher, Homer Davis
was appointed Principal in 1927 and President of Athens
College in Greece in 1930.
At the outbreak of the
Second World War the Davises returned to the U.S.A. From
September 1941 to May 1942, Homer Davis was chief of
project licensing division of the Board of Economic
Warfare. The next nine months were spent as executive
vice president of the Greek War Relief. At the beginning
of 1943 he joined the State Department as special
assistant, to the Foreign Service Auxiliary and was
assigned to the American Consulate General in Istanbul,
In 1944 he, returned to Athens as Public Relations
Officer with UNRRA. In 1946 Homer. And Marjorie Davis
returned to Athens College where they remained, until
their retirement to Cape Cod in 1976.
The following is an excerpt,
of a resolution by the Trustees on the occasion of Homer
Davis' retirement in June of 1960:
"The debt of Athens College to
Homer Davis lies warm in the
Hearts of its graduates; it lives in the
sap of the trees he has nourished and
In the beauty of, the campus He has
created.
Dr. Davis is survived by his
brother Charles J. R., Davis of Trumbull, Connecticut,
and several nephews. A private
burial was held in a Long Island family plot in Coram,
New York.