Austin, Texas — Funeral services for Alice Davis Paul were held at 11 a.m. on Wednesday at Corinth Missionary Baptist Church in Austin, Texas with Pastor Gary M. Renfro officiating.

Alice Davis Paul, a loving mother, grandmother, great grandmother, aunt, friend and to her surviving siblings for whom she often acted as “mother hen”, a doting and loving sister, was born on August 1, 1933 to the union of Sidney Davis and Bertha Kelly Davis Leblanc. Her formative years were spent in New Iberia, Louisiana, the place of her birth and the place where she received the home training and education which was to guide her successfully throughout her life. She received her formal education from Iberia Parish Training School and Henderson High School from which she graduated in 1954.  It was while still in New Iberia, that Alice, a young woman whose heart had already begun to be tugged at by the nursing bug, met and married the then love of her life, Joseph Paul Sr. From this union, Alice was blessed with five children; three daughters and two sons.

Wishing to find new ground upon which to nourish her desire to labor in the nursing field, Alice moved her young family to Galveston, Texas where she eventually found her way to UTMB Hospital. It was at UTMB as a nursing assistant that her desire to enmesh herself in patient care began to flourish. Other than raising her family, there was absolutely no task that gave her greater joy. Following her retirement from UTMB after 20 years of faithful and dedicated service which, in her own words, “was a truly rich and rewarding period of my life.” Alice embarked more fully upon the simpler but no less rewarding task of matriarch to her now enlarged family. She especially enjoyed fulfilling the role, as perhaps no other could in Galveston, as “the cooking Maw-Maw” and the “Louisiana cook.”

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Little did Alice know however that her “nursing” role was not only not over but it was about to propel her into the most rewarding and most enriching nursing contribution she would ever make. When her older brother John became critically infirmed, Alice agreed first to commute alternately with her sister Easter to New Iberia to take care of him and then to take him to her own home in Galveston where she and her son “Tony” nursed him back from the very brink of death to a highly functional life which he enjoys until this day.

Alice reaffirmed her faith in Jesus Christ and joined with a local church where she gained a quiet strength that was to serve her well in the challenges that lay ahead. The first of those challenges was Hurricane Ike which devastated her beloved Galveston, forcing her and her family to flee for their very lives. Arriving in Austin, Texas, with her faith still intact, Alice began the process of rebuilding her life and the lives of her family. While in Austin, the second of those challenges occurred. She experienced a series of heart attacks, the last from which she would not recover. 

 On Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009 Alice Davis Paul, who in her last days had begun to look for “a city whose builder and maker was God,” was ushered into that very city to begin the first day of her promised eternal life.

Alice leaves to continue “the race that was set before them” three daughters, Evangelist Denise Jones of Austin, Texas, Sandra Hardeman of Galveston, Texas, Sylvia Terry and her husband Cornelius of Virginia Beach, Va. and one son who was not only her son but in her own words, her “all in all”, Anthony “Tony” Paul of  Austin, Texas. Additionally she leaves to cherish her memories seven grandchildren; Kiska Jones, Leron Jones and his wife Deanna, and Courtney Jones all of Austin, Texas, Terry Hardeman Jr. of San Diego Calif., Brandi Hardeman of Galveston Texas, Kelly Terry of Baltimore, Md., Britanny Terry of Virginia Beach, Va.; six great grandchildren, Terrance, Daveion, Christopher, Nevaeh, Timirrah, and Jonovyn.

Alice further leaves to cherish her memories her three sisters and three brothers, to whom, upon the death of their beloved mother, she became surrogate mother, John Davis and Joann “Jody” Davis of Austin, Texas, Easter Mae Watson of San Antonia, Texas, Martha Ann “Marty” Doucette of Dallas, Texas, Sidney Davis Jr. and the Rev. Francis “Frankie” L. Davis and his wife Angellee of New Iberia and two uncles, Wallace Kelly and Wilfred Placide Sr. of New Iberia.

Alice will be fondly remembered by her former husband and the father of her children, Joseph Paul Sr. and his wife Theresa, and a very devoted sister-in-law Vivian Moncriffe Davis of Dallas, Texas. 

Alice was preceded in death by her father Sidney Davis Sr., her mother Bertha Kelly Davis Leblanc and her step-father Benny “Pine” Leblanc; one son, Samuel “Sam Joe” Paul; one great grandson Jamari L. Jones; three sisters, Betty Ruth Davis, Rosalie Scott and Alberta Williams; three brothers, Gerald Davis, Samuel Davis, and Lawrence “LD” Davis Sr.; two brothers-in-law, James Hilton Williams and Harold Watson Sr.; two nieces that she looked upon as her own children, Melody Scott Decuir and Lisa Scott Jones and a host of other family members and friends who “weep not as those without hope,” but who are standing rather upon the sure promise that “we will see her in the morning.”

Pallbearers were family members and friends. King-Tears Mortuary, Inc of Austin, Texas was in charge of arrangements with the burial taking place in Evergreen Cemetery in Austin, Texas.