Marcia E Davis

She was born August 11, 1939 in Yonkers, New York to Helene and Francis Graham Doorly. As a child, she moved with her family to southern California and grew up in Glendale, attending Herbert Hoover High School. Following high school graduation, she briefly worked as an administrative assistant in a law office. She married Jon Philip Davis in 1960 at the age of 20 and subsequently had three children, which then became her full time job. In 1970 she and Jon moved from Woodland Hills to Newport Beach in Orange County where she remained in the same home until her death. She enjoyed gardening, bowling and bridge with much success and many enduring friendships. She also regularly worked at the voting polls on election days and volunteered in multiple organized activities of her children, such as Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, the Lutheran Church and various athletic endeavors.

When her children reached high school age, she took a job at University High School in Irvine as the cafeteria manager, where she really honed her management and food safety skills. She was an excellent, creative and ambitious cook, always making new dishes and constantly cutting out interesting recipes from the newspaper and magazines every week. These were not just cut out and saved, but used and reused, but never overused, with unacknowledged but consistent success. She traveled the world through her kitchen.

She was known for her understated generosity. As anyone who came to her home knew, she kept several jars of candy by the front door for the sole sake of giving it away to neighborhood children. She was known to several formations of the neighborhood as “the Starburst Lady,” “the Candy Lady” or the “Candy House.” Every day was Halloween in this respect and any child could come once a day and have their pick.

After retiring from her long career at University High School, she continued to enjoy cooking and traveling and volunteered her time at Sherman Library and Gardens in Corona del Mar. She continued at Sherman Gardens until her health prevented her from doing so.

She is predeceased by her parents, Helene and Francis Doorly, her dear aunt and uncle, Dorothy (Dot) and Bill Adams and her older sister Barbara (Babs) Holt. She is survived by her husband of 62 years, Jon, and her three children Mitch (Lani) Davis, Mindy (Anthony “Z”) Nokes and Rodger (Claudia) Davis as well as her nephews Randy (Becky) and Greg (Mirjam) Holt and grandchildren Madelynne (Guy) Nokes-Atwood, Christopher Zamora, Beatrice (Javier) Macias, Melanie (Eduardo) Casillas, Ryan Davis and Kyle Davis and two great grandchildren, Ethan Ho and Jason Macias. She will be dearly missed.

Services will be held at Pacific View Memorial Park and Mortuary 3500 Pacific View Drive, Corona del Mar, CA on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 at 2:00 pm. In lieu of flowers a memorial donation may be made to Sherman Library and Gardens https://experience.thesherman.org/don-gen/give-a-donation