In many ways, the story of Maxine Davison’s life is a love story – the simple love of a woman for beautiful things, the ambitious love of satisfying work, the generous love of a benefactor, and the complicated love of children and two different but special men. Maxine and her first husband, Donald Davison, came to Spencerport in 1942 when he purchased a quagmire of wires, poles and scattered old-fashioned telephones known as the Ogden Telephone Company. Together, the Davisons grew the company into a multi-million dollar enterprise that earned a David-versus-Goliath reputation by competing effectively with the much larger Rochester Telephone. Along the way they turned employees into family members, gave substantial gifts to Roberts Wesleyan College and other community organizations, and still found time for walks along the canal and creating and enjoying art and music. Maxine met Don at Syracuse University where she was a Kappa Gamma and he was a likeable fraternity boy. They married as The Great Depression came to a close and Don landed his first job in the infant telecommunications field at New York Telephone. His first assignment, to check out a small phone company in Munnsville, Madison County, turned out to be the chance of a lifetime; when New York Telephone decided not to invest in the Munnsville company, Don bought it himself. In Munnsville, Don learned how to repair poles and splice wires and Maxine planted the peonies that came with them to Spencerport a few years later. The flowers still grow behind the former Ogden Telephone building on West Avenue in Spencerport village.
World War II made things difficult for the young entrepreneurs; both metal and manpower were scarce. Still, shortly after acquiring Ogden Telephone Company, the Davisons purchased Hilton Telephone and merged the two systems. Don continued to repair lines and install phones himself while Maxine ran the switchboard, although local folklore has it that she could handle repairs if necessary. Most of their early customers were struggling too, so eggs and ham hocks were acceptable forms of payment. Just after the Davisons came to town, Jeannette (Faulkner) Zarnstorff started working for Ogden Tel. She was only in high school when she started there but before long she became Don’s private secretary. By then the Davisons were already known as an interesting couple. “Like one person, ‘Maxine-and-Don,’ ” Zarnstorff said. “It was always the two of them together.” As they settled into the community, Maxine revealed the mix of characteristics that continue to endear her to so many – polished, impeccably mannered, yet tough-as-nails. “I used to keep a pair of white gloves and a little purse in my desk because Maxine would often need to go to some luncheon or another at the University Club downtown and never wanted to go alone,” Zarnstorff said. “She certainly never demanded that I wear those gloves or bring the purse, but I just knew that if I was going to be along, I’d better look like a lady.” The Davisons and their circle of friends, which easily expanded to include many of those who worked for them, found many ways to have fun. Don played the banjo in musicales and they sponsored and participated in a community band that marched in Memorial Day parades in the 1940s and ’50s, Zarnstorff said. They became active in The First Congregational Church, known as The White Church – Maxine added her beautiful voice to the choir — and, as the business began to flourish, the couple started to ensure that others had what they needed in order to make ends meet. “It was always a very private thing, but they definitely were watching out for people,” Zarnstorff said. As the country came out of the war years, the Davisons “adopted” Roberts Wesleyan College and began their long association with the small school that they considered to be part of their community. We couldn’t have done it without her “I can hardly describe the impact Maxine Davison has had on this institution and our students,” said Bill Bigham, Director of Development at Roberts Wesleyan College. “So many times she saw our needs and stepped in to fill them.” That sentiment was shared recently by Bernie Cubitt, a member of the Ogden Historical Society heading up a committee restoring an old trolley station that had at some point been moved to land near the Davisons’ Spencerport village home. The building, once a part of the Rochester-Lockport-Buffalo line, was purchased at auction by Davison and donated to the Village of Spencerport. After repairs are completed, the building will be moved to a site along the canal, where it will serve boaters and canal path travelers with showers and laundry facilities on the lower level and as a museum and perhaps a display area for historical information on the upper level. “Maxine is the savior of the whole project,” Cubitt said. “Without her, this historic building would be long gone. People think of her as the matriarch of Spencerport. She really came through.” There are countless other examples of the Davisons’ generosity. She and Don are said to have inspired the creation of a chamber of commerce group in the early 1970s, were originators of an early community heritage event and the company was a strong supporter of the Spencerport Canal Days event in its early years. She supports the Morgan Manning House in Brockport, the home of the Western New York Historical Society; the Memorial Art Gallery, WXXI and Park Ridge Hospital. A Syracuse University web page lists the Maxine B. Davison Endowed Scholarship and numerous other academic aid gifts to the university, friends mention gifts to small colleges in Appalachia, and Jeannette Zarnstorff proudly displays the antique dropleaf table that Maxine and Don bought her one Saturday afternoon. There are more generous gestures than there is room to list. We were a family “I told Don and Maxine that I wanted to do a good job, but I just couldn’t take dictation. I wasn’t going to make it as his secretary,” Zarnstorff said. “They just said, ‘Fine. We’ll make you the business manager instead.’ ” That story is echoed by many others. Maureen Howard went to Ogden Telephone in 1977 as a part-time secretary, worked in a series of positions created just for her, and ended her career there in 1998 as the company’s director of corporate affairs. Phil Evans came to the company in 1959 and moved up through the ranks to become company president in 1993. Rather than creating jobs and searching for people to fill them, Maxine and Don looked for the skills each employee had to offer and created jobs that maximized those skills, Howard said. “The culture of that company was like family. We were a very cohesive group and we worked hard to do the best work we could. They (the Davisons) expected excellence.” With great dignity Davison took over a strong company that had expanded to North Chili and served more than 12,000 customers. Customer service dominated her leadership and it wasn’t long before the company began earning a streak of Quality Service Awards from the New York State Public Service Commission. According to a 1988 Times-Union story, Ogden Tel, earning revenues of more than $6 million annually and serving 16,000 customers, was firmly entrenched as the other telephone company in the Rochester area. Hints that Ogden Tel might not remain family or even privately-owned emerged in that same article. Maxine and Don’s son, Andrew, was vice president for purchasing in 1988 but when asked to comment on whether he would eventually run the company said, “that’s hard to say.” Andrew now lives in Florida and the Davisons’ daughter, Hallie, lives in North Carolina. Grandchildren and great-grandchildren are spread out along the eastern seaboard. Several years after Don died, Maxine married attorney Bernie Singer. Bernie was a longtime friend of Don and Maxine’s — he was at Syracuse University with them — and was a comfortable companion with a gift for storytelling. “Although Don was her soul mate,” Maureen Howard said, “Bernie helped her carry on.” In Maxine Davison’s tenure as company president, she proved herself to be an effective leader with a passion for learning, said Howard, who worked closely with her. “She has such a wonderful perspective on things and can be both frustrating and endearing in the same moment,” said Howard. “In the office, she used to keep stacks – I mean stacks — of mail on her desk. At least once a year I’d try to get her to clean it all off but she hated to throw any of it away. She was afraid there would be something interesting in there that she should be learning about.” Maxine Davison led the company through an era of continued growth and by 1994 it served 19,000 customers over a 102-square-mile area. Its residential rates at that time were some of the lowest in the state and Maxine was fond of saying that she ran a “very tight ship.” She didn’t spend money on decorating the office building but did invest in technology. She retired as president of the company but stayed on as chief executive officer and chairman of the board until well into her 80s. In fact, she remained active in the company until it was sold to Citizens Communications for more than $23 million in 1997. Bernie Singer died shortly thereafter. Citizens ultimately merged with Frontier Telephone. The little phone company that could is now just one small part of a corporate conglomerate.
Tim Baum first met Maxine when he began dating her granddaughter Andrea. “The first time I met her I knew I’d better be punctual and have my shirt tucked in,” he remembers. “The only way to impress her is through proper etiquette.” Despite his nervousness, Baum and Davison “hit it off” and grew close over the course of Tim and Andrea’s marriage. Although the couple eventually divorced, Baum remains very close to Maxine, who is now 92. Like many who know Maxine well, Baum talks about a genteel yet strong lady. “I am sure many people feared her,” he said. “She had her opinions and stuck to them. But that’s what led to her success.” But Baum also got to know another side of Davison, the quiet side. “She’s shown me the simple things,” Baum said, “sunsets, going to the ocean to just sit and watch, a drink on the back porch after work, the pleasure that comes from a good book.” Not long ago, late in the afternoon when all of the Frontier employees had gone home, Davison asked Baum to take her down to her former office building. Her peonies were being neglected, she said. Baum helped her clip and shore up the drooping plants until she was satisfied that they would be all right for a while. There wasn’t anything surprising about either her request or her energy, Baum said. “That’s just her – she cares.” Note: Address notes or cards to Maxine Davison at 15 Evergreen Street, Spencerport, NY 14559. To share your thoughts about Maxine Davison and to acknowledge her contributions to the community for publication in Suburban News address letters to Evelyn Dow, Editor; Westside News Inc; P.O. Box 106, Spencerport, NY 14559. |
