‘Queen of Childcare’ Enola Davis celebrates 60 years working in Vallejo schools

VALLEJO – Steffan Manor Elementary preschool and after-school program educator Enola Davis celebrated 60 years of working at the Vallejo City Unified School District last month.

Now in her 80s, she still leads an active lifestyle, regularly going to the gym, and dancing with the children during morning circle time meetings.

“I like dancing, period,” Davis said in an interview. “Wherever there’s a dance I like to be there. Now some of the kids, they like dancing too.”

These days Davis spends much of her day helping preschoolers with art projects and reading books to them. She said that, over the years, she’s learned how important it is to listen to the children in her classes.

“You have to listen to them so you can get a feel for what’s going on,” Davis said. “You’d be surprised what’s going on in their lives.”

She said children are honest with her, and sometimes tell her sad things like they didn’t eat dinner the previous night. Sometimes they tell her things they won’t tell their parents that make her laugh.

“I had a girl tell me her mom bought her this cute dress,” Davis said. “But guess what Ms. Enola? I don’t even like it.”

Renee Gutierrez, the lead teacher in the preschool class where Davis now works, said that after all these years Davis still approaches each school day with enthusiasm.

“She’s just a genuine person with a love for kids who loves coming to work,” Gutierrez said. “She’s always asking me for more things to do.”

Davis was born in New Orleans, the second oldest of eight siblings. Her family moved to Vallejo when she was four years old to seek better work. Her parents both got jobs working at the Mare Island Shipyard. 

She’s now spent almost her entire life in Vallejo schools, attending the city’s long shuttered Olympic and Flosden elementary schools, and Vallejo Junior High. She graduated from Hogan High School in the mid-1950s before attending Vallejo Junior College, which has now become Solano Community College.

After her schooling, Davis married and had three children. She said that in 1965, she applied for a job at Lincoln Elementary School. At first she was hesitant to take the job due to having to care for her own children, but she said the district arranged childcare for her while she worked.

Just like now, she worked with preschoolers. But Davis said things were different then, when preschool classes had over 25 students. These days she said her classes only have six or seven students. Educators’ relationships with the community were more personal in the past, Davis said, and she’d regularly visit her students’ homes to get acquainted with their parents and what their life was like.

“It was fantastic,” Davis said. “The children felt more comfortable talking to us because we’d been in their home.”

Over the years, Davis has worked at several other schools that are now closed, such as John Davidson, Grant, McKinley, and Farragut elementary schools. While she’s mostly worked with preschoolers aged three and four, she said she also worked for a time in an infant care program at Steffan Manor. 

These days, after the school day ends at 3 p.m., she spends an hour and a half in the after-school program monitoring kids as old as 13 while they play, and helping them with reading and other homework.

Gutierrez said Davis’s decades of care and service has caused her to have a positive reputation throughout town. She calls her the “queen of childcare.” Many district employees were Davis’s students. She has especially fond memories of George Tisby, who’s the director of custodian and site safety for the district. Everywhere Davis goes, people seem to remember her.

“I don’t think I’m famous but everywhere I go I see someone who was in my class,” Davis said. “It makes me feel good all over, like I’m somebody special. No matter how long ago or how short people seem to remember Ms. Enola.”

Coming from a big family that has now been in Vallejo for so long, sometimes Davis’s family members have been in her class. She said she’s had over ten nephews and nieces as students.

When asked about challenges she faces in her work, Davis said there are few.

“The only difficulty is getting up and coming, once I come I’m good,” David said. “I can almost count the days that I’ve been absent.”

Davis said still she takes pride in the progress her students make.

“I’m proud to see the children and what they’re doing now and what they accomplish,” Davis said. “They come in not even being able to a pencil, and they leave writing their name and knowing their alphabet. Sometimes they come in real shy. But by the time they leave they’re real comfortable with us.”

Davis said she still enjoys her work and doesn’t anticipate retiring. 

“I think I’m going to work forever,” she said.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the first school where Enola Davis worked.