Cov Davis
October 12, 1930 – May 27, 2021
A memorial service for Canon Marilyn “Cov” Davis is set for Saturday, Dec. 4, 2021 at 2 p.m. at the Episcopal Church of the Messiah, 614 N. Bush St., Santa Ana, CA 92701, her longtime parish. Davis died May 27, 2021 in Tustin and had marked her 90th birthday on Oct. 12, 2020.
She is survived by her spouse, Robin Hinch; Davis’s four children, Andrew Davis, Rebecca Davis, Lydia Mertens, and Benjamin Davis; Hinch’s two sons, James and Benjamin; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Survivors also include Richard and Wilford King, sons of Lucy Belle “Lu” King, Davis’s late partner of 28 years. Davis also is preceded in death by her former husband, the Rev. John Rogers Davis; a foster son, Herman Hurley; and her sister, Doris Coverley.
Davis joined Lu King in co-founding Saints Ælred and Hildegard, a Messiah parish LGBTQ ministry in Orange County and surrounding areas. Nearly 18 years later, five years after King’s death, Davis was in 2008 named an honorary canon of St. John’s Cathedral in Los Angeles in recognition of her special service to the diocese.
She and John Davis – who was in 1967-87 vicar and then rector of St. Michael and All Angels, Corona del Mar – remained close friends after ending their 1952 marriage in divorce in the 1970s.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1930, Marilyn Alice Coverley was a graduate of Radcliffe College and California State University, Fullerton. A longtime fifth grade history teacher at St. Jeanne de Lestonnac School in Tustin, Davis also served Orange County as a county clerk.