Feb 21, 2016 7 min read

FAIRMONT, W.Va. – Asa J. Davison Jr. has seen a lot in the 92 years he’s been a West Virginian. And these days he’s a local celebrity in the city of Fairmont.

“Everybody in this town knows me,” Davison said while sitting in the house off Maple Avenue that he’s owned for most of his life.

His family’s connection with Fairmont started decades ago with his father, Asa J. Davison Sr., who grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania before moving to the Marion County seat.

“My father was reared in Waynesburg, Pa.,” Davison said. “He was the first black to graduate from Waynesburg High School and Waynesburg College.”

Davison’s father, who spent time driving cattle before graduation, moved to Fairmont after college to live with his uncle, Peter Fagan.

While Davison’s father was working as a janitor, he was willed a piece of property after Fagan’s death.

“But back then everybody was poor, and he couldn’t maintain the property and had to let it go,” Davison said.

Davison’s father stayed in Fairmont and was finally given a break when a businesswoman in town noticed his potential.

“She said, ‘Asa, you’re a pretty smart man, but you’ve never had a decent job – would you like a job in the post office?”‘ Davison said.

His father worked at the post office while Davison grew up, attending the Dunbar School in Fairmont until the 11th grade.

“It was the only black school here in Marion County,” Davison said.

Davison dropped out of school a year early because he wanted to join the war effort in the early 1940s. He shipped off for basic training in Alabama by the age of 19 and was quickly shipped to the South Pacific.

“Everything was segregated then,” Davison said. “When we went to get on the ship, we didn’t know what was going to happen, but they put the white soldiers on the top of ship and the black soldiers on the bottom.”

It took 13 days for the ship to reach Guadalcanal.

When the soldiers stepped onto the beach there, Davison said they were shocked and frightened by the destruction that bombing had done to the island.

“I gave up,” Davison said. “I saw that, and I knew I would never see West Virginia again.”

He eventually went to New Guinea and other islands across the South Pacific, miraculously avoiding major conflict most of the way through.

But then, toward the end of his time in the war, Davison decided to rush out of his foxhole to have a peek at the enemy after a series of bombings.

“I stood there looking around because I always wanted to get the (Japanese) but hadn’t had the opportunity to kill any of them,” Davison said. “I didn’t see a thing, and all at once something hit me and I fell the ground. I laid there for a few minutes and couldn’t figure out what had happened.”

Davison said he lay there confused for a while. Then he remembered a miniature Bible he had stored in pocket.

“I pulled the Bible out of my pocket, and it was hit right in the center with either a bullet or a big piece of shrapnel,” Davison said.

He’s certain that carrying the Bible in his pocket saved his life.

It was during the war that Davison learned the importance of earning an education. He was demoted from a truck driver to a laborer once his commanding officer discovered that he had never finished high school.

“They said you have to have a high school education before you can do anything,” Davison said.

When he returned home, he earned his diploma from Dunbar High School in 1947.

Davison said jobs for African-Americans were hard to come by at the time, so he finally took a position laying track in a coal mine.

He then took a job at another mine, where ran into a troubling situation in his first day on the job.

“Three guys came by, and they looked and they said, ‘You’re laying that track wrong. If you lay it the other way, the boss will be proud of you,”‘ Davison said.

Thinking the mine laid track the opposite of how he was taught, Davison swapped the tracks.

His boss came through at the end of his shift, saw the work and accused Davison of lying about knowing how to lay track, since everything was backwards.

“I told my boss what those guys had done,” Davison said. “He told me if I didn’t get that track laid up the right way that night, I would be fired.”

Davison stayed past his shift, working for free, and laid the track correctly. He kept his new job.

In 1952, Davison took a position working in Fairmont’s post office, a job he kept until retiring in 1983.

Retirement didn’t keep Davison tied down for long, though. He soon bought a truck and started a demolition business in Fairmont. Davison worked in that career for another 30 years.

“I made a lot of landmarks in this town,” Davison said. “I tore down a lot of houses and other buildings.”

For the past several years, Davison has toured with his friend, Kip Price, teaching students about WWII, explaining the role African-American soldiers played during the war and sharing with them the tragic story of the “Wereth Eleven,” a group of African-American soldiers who were massacred by the Nazis.

“I’ve known him for a number of years,” Price said of Davison. “We became even closer these past three or four years.”

Price said he and Davison travel to churches, colleges and other schools talking about the war.

“When I do a presentation about this WWII story, I let (Davison) speak also to let people know about his participation in the war,” Price said. “What a treat it is to have (Davison) on board with me to show his true heroism, being part of The Greatest Generation. Plus, he’s well known and respected in this area.”

Davison served as parade marshal in the 2014 Fairmont Memorial Day Parade. And he was recently given his own commemorative display at the Mountaineer Military Museum in Weston.

Davison’s family is one of the proudest parts of his rich life. That family started not long after he graduated from high school.

“I saw this pretty girl walking around, so I went to her house and asked her mother if I could talk to her,” Davison said. “Her mom said, ‘I don’t know, I think you’re a little too old,’ and I said, ‘no, I’m not too old.”‘

It didn’t take long for the two to fall in love.

“I married her and we’ve been married for 65 years,” Davison said.

The two have three sons, all of whom are engineers: Jerry, Brian and Gregory. They also have eight grandchildren: Aston, Blair, Marra, Brena, Lenea, Jorden, Christopher and Tyler.

After sharing so many memories in Fairmont, Davison said his wife and he have no plans of leaving the home they’ve lived in for most of their lives.

“I don’t have any problems at all here,” Davison said. “I’ve got good neighbors, and everybody knows me. It’s real convenient to have good neighbors.”