Carrie D. Davies
March 21, 2008|The Morning Call
Carrie Deborah Davies, 98, died Wednesday evening, March 19, 2008, at Luther Crest, Allentown, where she had lived for the past 18 years. She was the wife of the late William S. Davies, well known as a longtime disc jockey and announcer at the radio station W.S.A.N. in Allentown. With her first husband, Karl A. Schuon, she was a moving force in the Allentown Civic Little Theatre during the 1930s and 40s. The pair starred for years in plays, radio dramas and other area productions. In fact, Carrie and Karl were once referred to by the Morning Call as the Lunts of little theater, a reference to Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, the most acclaimed acting team in the history of American theater. Her lead role in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect play Papa Is All helped to make the show a major hit and set a record for what was then the longest running Civic show. The profitable production put the organization on solid financial ground for the first time and helped in the search for a permanent home, eventually leading the theater to its current home on 19th Street. In the 1950s Carrie worked as the chief hat buyer for Hesss Department Store in Allentown. Later she operated Debbies Hat Bar in Catasauqua. With her husband Bill Davies, she traveled widely during the 1960s and 70s, and a running account of one of their trips to Mexico appeared in The Morning Call as a long-running series called The Short, Short Trailer. Born is Shamokin, Northumberland County, she was a daughter of the late Walter and Olive Belle (Foulke) Marshall.