California Route 66 advocate Vivian Davies dies

Vivian Davies, a founder of the California Historic Route 66 Association and an author of a vital Route 66 guidebook to California, died on April 5 at age 95 in Sedona, Ariz., reported her daughter.

Davies “didn’t want anything extra done about her” her daughter said in an email, so there was no funeral service.

A 2011 story in the San Bernardino County Sun published these memories from Davies, who was living in La Verne, Calif., at the time:

One day in March 1943, she and her husband were in a car they were delivering to the West Coast when it began to rain, and rain.

Reaching Miami, Okla., they and everyone else on U.S. 66 were halted by a six-foot-deep creek that flooded the road. They waited, and waited.

“We were stopped by the water in the morning, and by 4 p.m. the line of cars waiting for the creek to fall was five miles long,” she said. “A farmer with a tractor offered to pull anyone across for $5, but few were willing because $5 was a lot of money then.

“Finally, when the water fell a little, we said the `Lord’s Prayer,’ plowed through the water and made it, even though the creek was above the car door.”

Davies and Darinn Kuna co-wrote “Guide to Route 66 in California” in 1994, a slim, spiral-bound book in black-and-white that still contains valuable information for travelers wishing to trace the Mother Road in the Golden State.

Several of Davies’ old stories for the association’s newsletter can be found on its website.

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