- MARQUETTE, Mich. - Moira Davison (Davison) Reynolds, PhD, 96, recently living in Cincinnati near her son, but a long-term resident of 225 E. Michigan Street, Marquette, passed away Thursday, June 7, 2012 at Mercy Hospital Anderson in Cincinnati after a long period of declining health related to Parkinson's disease.
Born Marjorie Moira Davison, Moira was her family's firstborn. She was born in Bangor, Northern Ireland, on June 22, 1915 to Asa Francis and Marjorie (Bolton) Davison as a US citizen while her father was overseeing the building of a number of ships in Belfast for the Great White Fleet of the United Fruit Company. Fortunately, a few years earlier her future father (having spent the night aboard) had chosen to disembark the HMS Titanic in Belfast on the morning she set sail on her maiden voyage.
In 1921 Moira traveled across the Atlantic with her seafaring family to their family home in Hantsport, Nova Scotia. She later graduated from Edghill boarding school nearby. She fondly remembered many trips while off school traveling with her sea captain father as he sailed to Central America to pick up loads of fruit bound for the eastern seaboard. Moira earned her Bachelors degree in 1937 from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and began her early career as a clinical chemist. She moved to Quincy, Massachusetts in 1939 where she worked at the Quincy Hospital laboratory. Throughout the World War 2 years, starting in 1942, Moira became the Chief Technologist managing the Faulkner Hospital laboratory in Boston, the hospital where she would later give birth to her only child. After the war she left Boston briefly to become a research laboratory technologist at Wayne State University in Detroit from 1946 thru 1948. Moira then returned to Boston and attended Boston University, earning her Masters degree in 1949 and a PhD in biochemistry in 1952. With office space at a premium for PhD candidates at BU, she had to share her office space with a fellow Ph.D. candidate future famed author Isaac Asimov. Moira was one of very few women to be a medical school professor in 1952, and was a member of the Boston University cancer research team for the next decade. Her research became widely published.
It was during her tenure as a biochemistry professor that she was assigned to supervise a Masters degree candidate from Nampa, Idaho, Orland Reynolds. They fell in love, and after he defended his Masters thesis they announced their engagement. Moira and Orland were married in Boston on September 4, 1954 and settled in Milton, one of Boston's southern suburbs. While Moira continued teaching at BU, Orland earned his PhD at Boston University and did a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard. They welcomed their only child Ronald in July of 1958, naming him by rearranging the letters of Orland's name. Moira served as President of the Northeast Section of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry in 1957 and 1958. When Orland earned a teaching position in the Biology Department at Middlebury College in Vermont in 1962, Moira left teaching and returned to her clinical chemistry roots - becoming the director of the laboratory at Porter Hospital in Middlebury. During her tenure in Middlebury, she wrote an authoritative textbook on clinical chemistry methods for the small hospital laboratory, beginning a new career direction as a writer. In 1967 Moira and Orland welcomed into their home Shannon Murphy, the youngest son of her recently deceased sister Betty. For the next three years Shannon became the brother that Ron had never had. Moira, Orland Ron and Shannon moved to Marquette in 1968 as Orland accepted a position as a professor in the Biology Department at Northern Michigan University joining his former colleague from Middlebury, Bill Robinson. They bought a home on the corner of Michigan and Pine, and lived there for the next 37 years. In Marquette, Moira changed direction again as she focused on creative writing and volunteering in many capacities all over the area. While she still did some clinical chemistry as a volunteer at the former St. Luke's Hospital, Moira started a long civic career.
Together with Orland, she co-founded the Marquette branch of Planned Parenthood, and later even gave up her home phone number for their office since the community had become used to calling that number. Moira became involved in multiple organizations around Marquette, including the American Association of University Women and Zonta International, eventually serving as president of both organizations. She served on many community boards, notably as a board member of Peter White Public Library and the State of Michigan Health Facilities and Agencies Advisory Commission. Moira was deeply involved with the local American Cancer Society and served on the Board of Directors of their Michigan Division for five years. She committed her heart and soul into writing and promoting local writers, founding a writers group in Marquette. She served the Michigan Council for Arts as a writer-in-residence for many years. Moira authored many books including Uncle Tom's Cabin and Mid-19th Century U.S., Nine American Women of the 19th Century, Women Champions of Human Rights, Coping with an Immigrant Parent, and biographies of Margaret Sanger and Louis Pasteur. Under the pseudonym Marna Moore she wrote numerous magazine articles that appeared in in-flight publications. She played the role of Rebecca Nurse in Arthur Miller's Crucible as directed by her dear friend Vivian Lasich in the Marquette Community Theatre.
In 1979 Moira was recognized for her community service with the NMU President's Award for Distinguished Citizenship. On a personal level, Moira enjoyed traveling, reading, listening to public broadcasting, discussing the issues of the day with her countless friends, supporting Orland's unicycle and trick lariat activities, knitting afghans and playing tennis with Miriam Hilton. Long after Orland's retirement, Moira and Orland celebrated 50 years of marriage with a formal celebration in Marquette followed by a five-day trip to Boston with their son Ron to reminisce about their early life together. When Orland died a year later of a bone marrow problem in 2005, she was suffering from Parkinson's disease and could no longer live independently in her home. Moira moved to an assisted living facility in Cincinnati to be near her son Ron, her daughter-in-law Diana and her four grandchildren.
Despite all of her countless accomplishments, Moira remained a humble woman, invariably deflecting well-deserved praise. She kept a constantly calm demeanor throughout all of life's ups and downs, and always strived to quietly better other people's lives. Few ever heard a complaint from her lips, especially about herself. Moira saw plenty of things in the world that she felt needed improvement, but always invested her energy going about fixing them rather than grousing.
She took special pride in her numerous nieces and nephews and in her four grandchildren Brittany, Drew, Avery and Isabelle. She will be greatly missed by her family and friends.
Moira was preceded in death by her parents and husband, sisters Betty (George) Murphy of Wellfleet, MA, Jean (Arthur) Vaughn of Boston, Brenda (Richard) Cook of Seattle, and brother A. Michael (Jane) Davison of California. Moira is survived by her family physician son Ronald (Diana) Reynolds, MD, four grandchildren - Brittany, Andrew, Avery and Isabelle Reynolds of Cincinnati, and ten nieces and nephews.
The family will receive relatives and friends at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Marquette, on Saturday, June 16, from 10:00 until 11:00 am. Her 11:00 am funeral will be officiated by Rev. Robert Railey. Inurnment beside her husband Orland will take place at Park Cemetery.
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1915 - 2012 (96 years)
