History of Southern Illinois ~ Biography of Frank M. Davis

Biography of
Frank M. Davis

p. 1574

FRANK M. DAVIS. An able, intelligent and enterprising journalist, Frank M. Davis, of Breese, Illinois, editor, manager and proprietor of the People’s Interest, has been actively identified with the advancement of the newspaper interests of Clinton county since attaining his majority. He is a selfmade man in the best sense of that term, whatever success has come to him having been honestly earned by hard work and unflagging devotion to his profession. A native of Illinois, he was born in Louisville, Clay county.

His father, William M. Davis, who was born in Waterford, Ohio, April 14, 1852, came with his parents to Illinois when a small child, and was brought up on his father’s farm in Kinmundy. He subsequently worked at various occupations in and around that town, finally locating at Sailor Springs, Clay county, where he spent the closing years of his life retired from active pursuits, passing away March 23, 1900. He was an uncompromising Republican in politics, and a member of the Old School Presbyterian church. He married Maria T. Critchlow, of Louisville, Illinois, and to them five children were born, as follows: Florence, the wife of George Bateman; Frank M.; Pearl C., the second son; Claude P. and Lucy May. The wife survived him many years, dying in March, 1910.

Frank M. Davis spent his childhood days in Illinois, in Wakefield and Farina; subsequently acquiring his preliminary education in the public schools of Sailor Springs, and later being graduated from the Clay City high school. For five years, from the age of fourteen until nineteen, he was employed in a drug store. Embarking then upon his journalistic career, Mr. Davis became affiliated with the World, one of the leading papers of Sailor Springs, having a half interest in the sheet, At the age of twenty-one years he bought out his partner’s interest and continued to publish the paper until 1906. In January of that year Mr. Davis moved his plant to Breese, and the following month, in February, 1906, established the journal with which he has since been associated as proprietor and editor, the People’s Interest, a paper that is in every way true to its name, being a nonpartisan sheet, devoted to the best and highest interests of the people and the community, and gladly championing all enterprises conducive to the public good. Mr. Davis started business, with a partner, at Sailor Springs with no other assets than a courageous heart, an active brain and plenty of ambition and energy, and has since built up a substantial business, having a large, well equipped newspaper plant, which he is managing successfully.

Mr. Davis married, June 17, 1911, Allie Patton, of Beckemeyer, Illinois. Politically Mr. Davis is a staunch advocate of the principles of the Republican party; fraternally he is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows; and religiously he belongs to the Methodist Episcopal church.

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