From Bradfute Warwick Davenport, Jr.

The Bible at Home

John Sidney Davenport Jr. was devout and had been raised in the Catholic Apostolic Church, the same denomination his father joined in 1866. According to Bradfute Warwick Davenport Jr., John did not have full confidence in the biblical education his sons were receiving, so he taught them the Bible himself at home. The boys learned scripture well, even if none of the five brothers was remembered as especially pious.

Douglas Southall Freeman and the Lee Monument

Douglas Southall Freeman, editor of the Richmond News Leader and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Robert E. Lee and George Washington, was known in family memory for stopping on Monument Avenue to salute the Lee monument. John Sidney Davenport Jr. thought the ritual was ridiculous: a small but revealing glimpse of the New England-born actuary living in Richmond's Lost Cause culture without entirely adopting it.

The Davenport Trophy at St. Christopher's

The five brothers gave St. Christopher's School the Davenport Trophy in honor of their parents. It became one of the school's major athletic awards, presented annually at the spring athletic banquet. Family friend George McVey recalled that Athletic Director Dick Kemper had to be coached each year on the full names of the sons: John Sidney, Byrd Warwick, Roswell Burrows, Stephen Rintoul, and Bradfute Warwick. John Sidney was easy; Roswell, Rintoul, Bradfute, and Warwick took practice, and the second Warwick could be as hard as the first.

The Wedding Night Prank, July 1942

The photograph of John, Marguerite, and all five sons dressed in white was taken at the Anderson, South Carolina wedding of Bradfute Warwick Davenport and Martha Orr in July 1942. The bride and groom went to Greenville for their wedding night. The brothers tracked them down and rented a room on the floor above. The next morning Martha heard a rap on the window and found Roswell hanging upside down outside the glass, grinning, while one of his brothers held him by the ankles.