Nine days ago, Roy Davis left the comforts of his homeland in Germany and stepped off the plane at the Little Rock National Airport — arriving a stranger in a strange land. More than 50 relatives of the late Roy Wayne Davis gathered inside the Saline County Odd Fellows Lodge in Benton on Saturday to meet his son, Roy Davis, who traveled to the United States for the first time on Sept. 6. At the age of 40, Davis met his relatives on his father’s side for the first time. (posed 2) - Emily Boggs, middle, of Bryant invited her nephew Roy Davis and his finance Sonja Gollwitzer, both of Germany to a family reunion at the Saline County Odd Fellows Lodge in Benton on Saturday. Davis, whose father is former Bryant Police Officer Roy Wayne Davis, had never visited America or his father’s family until Boggs picked him up from the Little Rock National Airport on Sunday, Sept. 6. (Courier photo by Matt Burks)
Next Monday, Sept. 21, with a suitcase full of pictures and mind full of new memories, he will leave Saline County with a sense of belonging and a family he never knew — departing in joyful tears.
Davis, 40, said he will leave the city of Bryant with a wave, a smile and a sense of closure.
“I will go back knowing they are not so far away now,” he said. “In Germany, I thought a lot about if I have brothers and sisters here in America, and now I know.”
Davis’ father, Roy Wayne Davis, born in Benton on Oct. 2, 1946, grew up to be a decorated soldier of the U.S. Army. After eight years of serving his country, he returned to Saline County and began serving his community as a law enforcement officer.
In 1975, Davis started his career as a security officer at the Benton Service Center. A few years later he joined the Saline County Sheriff’s Office. But it was his career at the Bryant Police Department where he would leave his legacy.
“There weren’t many people in Saline County that didn’t know him,” Kathy Davis said. “I was married to him for 30 years. He was good officer and a good person.”
Kathy Davis said her husband was one of the five original officers of the Bryant Police Department. The two never had children together but accepted roles as godparents to many children in Saline County.
Years prior, during the Vietnam era in the early 1970s, Roy Wayne Davis was stationed in Germany. He met a woman named Heidi Miclekevich, and the two would later have a son together. Kathy Davis said her husband previously married Miclekevich and made his son’s name legitimate to the Davis family. It was at the age of 2 though, that the son, Roy Davis would stare into his father’s eyes for the last time.
At the age of 14, he received a letter with a few pictures and correspondence from an American woman claiming she was his aunt and wanting to help connect his past and possibly his future.
“I always wanted to contact (my father) and thought of him often,” Davis said. “When he left, I was only 2, so I cannot remember him.”
Years later, that same aunt also spoke with family member Emily Boggs. Before the aunt’s died on April 26, she asked Boggs to search for the little-known Roy Davis.
“I know that when she was sick in the hospital, she asked (Boggs) to get into contact with me,” Roy Davis said. “She wrote me a letter earlier this year and said to get into contact with me by Facebook. ”
Davis said after speaking with Boggs for a few weeks, he changed his planned vacation course and date of leave. He also found sad information about the father he never knew.
“When I heard from Emily, I found out that my father had passed away,” Davis said. “I decided that I didn’t want to wait any longer to visit my family. I wanted to come before anyone else passes away.”
Thirty-eight years after his father left him, Davis stepped onto American soil for the first time. As he strolled down the airport terminal with his fiancee, Sonja Gollwitzer, by his side, Davis looked for an unfamiliar face with a familiar family name.
“I was a little bit nervous,” Davis said. “I didn’t know what to expect. But my fiancee, she helped me a lot by just coming here with me. She is the one who first told me to make my vacation in the U.S., but use this time for learning about my family.”
With arms wide open, Emily Boggs and her husband, Buford, of Bryant, opened their hearts, home and family to Davis and Gollwitzer. But before the family could leave the airport and set forth on the journey to his past, present and future, Davis wanted to try his first American food.
“I had to get a hot dog,” he said. “In Germany, hot dogs are very rare and hard to find.”
After arriving at the Boggs home in Bryant, over the next several days, Davis and Gollwitzer was fed with traditional southern U.S. cuisine. The Boggses said they filled their visitors’ stomachs with everything from fried okra and ham to corn on the cob, purple hull peas and sweet potatoes. Davis even told Boggs that sweet potatoes “should be a dessert.”
On Sunday, family from Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma and all over Arkansas met at the Saline County Odd Fellows Lodge to meet their long-traveled nephew and cousin. Davis said he spoke with a few people on the Internet but said “some I will meet for the first time today.” One person in particular was a little conflicted to see a face she recognized.
“It was shocking to see him,” Kathy Davis said. “I never expected to be able to meet him. I think he carries himself with high dignity, just like Roy Wayne Davis did.”
After a few emotional moments, Davis added, “If Roy Wayne Davis was here today, I think he would accept it, what is going on here today. And I want to say that I wouldn’t deny (Roy Davis) recognizing his father for anything.”
Before the Sunday family reunion, Davis said Emily Boggs drove him around Saline County where his father traveled before him. He said he was impressed by the sheer beauty and weather of Arkansas.
“It is very nice and very beautiful,” he said. “Everything is different here, but nice. It is nice to see other cultures and to meet my family. And the weather here is just — it’s beautiful. In Germany, it is very cold.”
Davis also encountered a myriad of uneasy feelings while traveling through his father’s home state. Boggs took Davis and Gollwitzer to the family burial plots of his relatives — including the man he most wanted to know.
“When I stood over my father’s grave, I was a little bit upset,” Davis said. “I had never met him, but in a way, I think I got a sense of closure. I was also very upset when I went to my aunt’s grave too. She was the one who first contacted me.”
Davis added, “To see [Roy Wayne Davis] picture on the wall of the Odd Fellows Lodge, to know that he had been here. My family here, they told me everything about him — the house he lived in and just about his life here. Even when we were driving around, I was thinking about how many times he crossed these roads already and now I am driving on the same path.”
Boggs said her family has had a sense of closure as well. It was in her home that Davis learned of his family and the Boggs learned his life and his family.
“We are having such a good time,” she said, holding back tears. “I kind of feel like we are blessed more than any of the other family members. We really got to know them and spend time with them. We don’t want them to go home.”
Although Davis said he is ready to go home to eat his native food, he also feels a new future in America. “I feel like America is a lot like home now,” Davis said.
Davis said he arrived somewhat of a stranger to America, but will leave with not only a new family and knowledge of the family history — he also leaves with a new understanding of himself.
“I found out a lot of things about me,” he said. “Emily said I even walk like my father, and there were things I never understood about myself before, but being here, I found out all these things, and I know who I am now. Was it life-changing? Yes. I heard and saw things about my father and I said ‘I must be his son.’ When I go back home, [the Davis family] are not so far away now.”
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