July 3, 1933 to April 1, 2024

Sheryl “Sherry” Stoddard Davey, 90, died on April 1 in Sacramento, California, from complications after a fall.

The daughter of Waldo Izatt Stoddard and Winifred Johanna Holmgren Stoddard, she was born in Ogden, Utah on July 3, 1933. She spent much of her childhood in Battle Creek, Michigan, where her father embarked on a career in banking which eventually took the family to Grand Rapids. Sherry graduated from East Grand Rapids High School in 1951, a member of the National Honor Society, vice-president of the Sigma Delta Club, and a class officer in the student council. She entered Stanford University that fall. While studying in Guanajuato, Mexico, during the summer of 1952, she contracted polio and suffered peripheral muscle damage, which affected her ability to walk. Back at Stanford and still on crutches, she met Gerald Leland Davey, a mathematics major from Salt Lake City in the spring of 1953. They wed on September 7, 1954, in the Salt Lake City Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, of which they were practicing members for their entire marriage. She completed her bachelor’s degree in physical therapy in August 1955 and five months later gave birth to their first child, Claire. From 1957 to 1966, the Davey family lived in Southern California, first at Edwards Air Force Base and then in Woodland Hills. A position for Mr. Davey at Credit Data Corporation in New York City took Mrs. Davey and their four children to Short Hills, New Jersey, where they lived until moving to Salt Lake City in 1970. Mrs. Davey began work toward a Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Utah but elected instead to pursue a career in nursing, obtaining a second bachelor’s degree and license as a registered nurse in 1978. After living in Nevada City, California, from 1980 to 1986, Mr. and Mrs. Davey returned to Salt Lake City, where she received her master’s degree in nursing from the University of Utah in 1988. From 1989 to her retirement in 2000, she split her time between working as a clinical nurse specialist at the University of Utah Medical Center and teaching in the College of Nursing, receiving in her final year of service the Excellence in Teaching Award.

With an expansive curiosity and a keen intellect, Mrs. Davey was a lifelong, passionate student and later an ardent and devoted teacher, from mentoring undergraduates in microbiology lab and lecturing on pathophysiology for her nursing students to tutoring elementary students of English as a second language and organizing a series of Great Courses for the residents of her independent living community. After returning to Nevada City in 2004, she became an accomplished painter of watercolors, which now decorate the homes of her children and grandchildren. Between moments at her easel, she avidly cheered for the Golden State Warriors, intently followed the adventures of N.C.I.S. (with Gibbs, her cat), and, most recently, developed an interest in physics and astrophysics. Mrs. Davey lived a life of quiet grace, uncommon generosity, and loving warmth. Her energy and tenacity in overcoming her physical limitations will continue to inspire her friends and family, all of whom will sorely miss her supportive presence.

She is survived by her sister, Lynne (W. Sanford) Topham, her four children Claire Ellis, Mark (Cheryl) Davey, Anne (Kenneth) Morrell, and Lynne (Jon) DiMartini, fourteen grandchildren, twenty-seven great-grandchildren, two great-great grandchildren.

Family members will gather to celebrate her life on Friday, April 19, in Auburn, California, and invite those who wish to memorialize Sherry to consider donating to (https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/), Heifer International (https://www.heifer.org/), and the American Red Cross (https://www.redcrossblood.org/).