Jo Ann Davis

Jo Ann (Browning) Davis was born on November 5th, 1934 in Macedonia, Illinois to Fred and Elsie (Barnfield) Browning, and passed away on May 5, 2024 at the age of 89. Jo Ann was preceded in death by her husband Donald who passed away in 2012 after 54 years of marriage. She is survived by her daughter, Kathy Ann (Davis) Fields (married to Bradley Fields), her son, John Eric Davis, her grandchildren, Joshua (married to Amanda Fields), Katelin, and Nathan Fields, and great-grandchildren, Emelyn and Bennett Fields, her sisters Fannie Golden and Mary Thomas, sister-in-law Sue Browning and many nieces and nephews. Her brother, Sherman Browning, preceded her in death in 2020.

Jo Ann was raised on a working farm in southern Illinois along with her two sisters and brother by her father Fred and mother Elsie. There she learned to work the land and raise livestock along with every other member of the family—a legacy which would follow her in later life as she continued to enjoy gardening, riding horses, and tending a few livestock. She graduated from high school in 1953 and went on to Southern Illinois University. There she discovered her passion for physical therapy and followed these studies on to Washington University Medical School in St. Louis where she completed her education in the field and graduated in 1956. While at SIU she met the handsome young Donald Davis after Don’s older brother George preached at Liberty Baptist church (Jo Ann’s family church). Her father Fred Browning was the church clerk and sent payment for George’s services through Jo Ann to give to Don, who was also a student at SIU, to give to George. Don no doubt was pleasantly surprised to have a pretty woman pursuing him for a change and they began courting. Jo Ann began her professional career as a Registered Physical Therapist after graduation, working in a variety of settings with special needs children. The couple was married on Valentine’s Day of 1958 and by November had their first child, Kathy. While Don continued his education at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, Jo Ann worked to support the family. In January of 1963, Jo Ann gave birth to the couple’s second child, John. Following Don’s graduation from SBTS, he began a career as Minister of Education in Sikeston, MO, then St. Petersburg, FL. Jo Ann continued to find work as a physical therapist in the various places they lived. While in Florida, Don lost his voice after suffering a rare form of stroke. Feeling unable to further pursue a career in the ministry, he changed course to pursue education and a job in the newly formed computer systems department of the Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville, TN in 1967. Jo Ann joined the staff of the Cerebral Palsy Center of Nashville, working with many disabled children there to maximize their independence. Seeing the disadvantaged circumstances of many of the children’s families, however, she could not limit her engagement to simply being a physical therapist. Often she would extend extra help to their struggling families and even brought several children to her home to care for them until their living circumstances could be improved with their families. Each year an annual telethon would be televised in Nashville (concurrent with the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Labor Day Telethon each year) to raise funds for the Cerebral Palsy Center. Jo Ann participated in these star-studded affairs, affording her children a chance to occasionally rub elbows with celebrities while helping raise funds. About this time Jo Ann also began volunteer work at the medical clinic of Nashville Rescue Mission, serving as an assistant to the doctor who tended to medical needs of the unhoused population. She soon joined the Board of Directors for the Mission and served in this capacity until her death. In her professional career, Jo Ann went on to practice physical therapy in nursing home settings as well as in home health. In this capacity, she often encountered clients in disadvantaged circumstances and went above and beyond the bounds of her profession to help provide for the basic needs of the families she served.

In 1970, Don, Jo Ann, and the kids moved to newly bought property in Mt. Juliet, TN: a farm once owned by the Carver family. Little did any of them know at the time that they had moved onto the very farm where W. O. Carver (considered by Southern Baptists to be the father of modern missions) had been born! Though unknown, this fact seemed to overshadow Don and Jo Ann’s destiny.

Jo Ann and Don (as well as their children) were active in Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville, serving in several capacities in church stewardship and leadership. An extension of this work took the form of the couple sponsoring several seminary students and missionaries from foreign countries over the years, hosting them in their home, helping house them, and helping fund their studies. People from all over the world (including such countries as Cuba, China, Chile, Liberia, India, Israel, Paraguay, South Africa and other countries) came through their home. In addition to aiding these students, their work helped make their own children aware of a much broader worldview. As anyone who has had similar experience has learned, a little knowledge of the world spawns an unquenchable thirst for more. The couple encouraged their daughter Kathy to be a foreign exchange student to Austria in 1976, then the very next year embarked on a European vacation with the whole family. It was the first of several international trips. Soon enough, the focus of these trips became less and less for leisure, and more and more to contribute to missionary work in the places visited. Over the years, Don and Jo Ann visited over 80 countries to help further Baptist mission work. This passion went on to inspire both of them to contribute to disaster relief work for the Tennessee Baptist Convention, traveling all over the country to set up mobile kitchens and feed disaster victims. Even this was not enough. Don and Jo Ann firmly believed in their roles as stewards of what God had entrusted to them, and with the dawn of a new century came the beginnings of a legacy the couple were crafting. In time, a sizeable portion of their farm in Mt. Juliet was gifted to the Tennessee Baptist Convention to construct the Mission Mobilization Center: a central facility for the training of disaster relief volunteers, storage of DR equipment, and hub for coordination of DR services. Also established was the Davis Family Foundation, a charitable organization which would go on funding worthy causes even after Don and Jo Ann had passed.

No one who ever met Jo Ann is likely to forget her: her plainspoken practicality, her faith in Jesus, and her commitment to be a good steward to any in need with the gifts she had been entrusted with.

Join us in celebrating Jo Ann’s life and legacy on May 10th and 11th at Hermitage Funeral Home & Memorial Gardens, 535 Shute Lane, Old Hickory, TN 37138. Visitation will be held Friday, May 10th from 4pm to 8pm and on Saturday, May 11th from 9am to 11am, with memorial services to be held at 11am. Graveside services will follow, for family only due to lack of space in the small family cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, please make donations in Jo Ann's honor to the Nashville Rescue Mission.