Ursula March Davidson was born October 13, 1919, the daughter of Orlando and Nettie Combs Davidson of Lower Mill Creek Ursula grew up in a loving family surrounded by three brothers:  Eldon, Walter, and Archie (died at age 19), and two sisters: Mildred and Evelyn.  The strength of this family unit would be tested early on because at the age of 22 months Ursula was stricken with infantile
paralysis, more commonly known as Polio.  This tragedy would have stopped many individuals from living normal lives or accomplishing common achievements, but not so for Ursula.  When it came time for Ursula to attend school, she went to school.  Her first educational experience was while she was in the hospital in Louisville and later in Ashland.  She was five years old at the time.  Once home she enrolled in elementary school there on Lower Mill Creek.  Family members say they remember Ursula's family using a horse or mule drawn sled as a means of transporting her to school. 

After high school she followed the footsteps of her sister and enrolled  in Madison College in Tennessee.  Once she had enough hours to teach she returned to Lower Mill Creek, this time as a teacher.  She taught her first year in a one room school and the next in a two room one.  At the end of those first two years she decided this was not for her and she returned to college, this time to Morehead State.

After graduation from Morehead she decided to give teaching another go and taught one-half year at Wayland.  The quest for learning was still within her and after Wayland she returned to the University where she received her Master's Degree in Botany.  Now she was ready to teach, and started a teaching career that would span the next 29 years.  She started by teaching one year in Wolfe County and then it was on to M. C. Napier, in Perry County, where she would spend the next 28 years teaching mostly biology and general science and in the last few years English.  She had a double major that allowed her to teach both.

In 1957, she was involved in a competition among teachers to see who would be selected to help write a resource book for biology.  Ursula was selected and it was off to Michigan State to work with other teachers in compiling the resource book. 

As a handicapped person, Ursula took up the plight of other individuals in similar situations.  Early on she found many "obstacles" that stood in the way of handicapped persons and would become a champion in the cause to see these barriers were removed.  In 1977, Ursula was selected as part of the Kentucky delegation attend the White House Conference on the Handicapped in Washington, D.C.  this conference would be the opening round for many laws pertaining to the handicapped and would culminate in the passing of PL94.142, the major and most current piece of legislation that outlines the rights and privileges of handicapped persons.

On the local front, Ursula has not been one to stand by and allow things she felt wrong to go unchallenged.  If she encountered an area that was inaccessible to the handicapped she has been quick to point it out to local officials, or for that matter anyone who would listen.  For her efforts many changes have been forthcoming, but doubt not as many as she would have liked to have seen.

In summary, Ursula has taken an adverse hand dealt her in life and made the most of it.  It would have been understandable if she had taken her handicap in a negative manner, but that was not part of the material that makes up the extraordinary character of this remarkable lady.  For this reason Knott County and the lives of the many students she has touched over the years are better for it.
 

Submitted by Corbett Mullins