Edward Roderick Davies (June 2, 1915 – September 8, 1992) was a self-made industrialist. He was the father of Ann Romney, wife of Senator

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...

. He was a life-long

Atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

Life and career

Davies was born on June 2, 1915, in Caerau, Bridgend, Wales, into a

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

family. In 1929 he

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

to the United States with his father David Davies who had black lung disease and had been injured in a mining accident. David worked at a Ford plant and paid for his wife, Annie Davies, and son, Edward, to come thereafter. In 1938, Edward graduated from

General Motors Institute of Technology Kettering University is a private university in Flint, Michigan. It offers Bachelor of Science, bachelor of science and master's degree, master’s degrees in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM (science, technology, engineeri ...

with a degree in engineering and, after serving a stint in the U.S. Naval Engineering corps, in 1946 he co-founded a maker of heavy equipment for marine use, Jered Industries. Some sources have suggested that Jered helped to engineer the landing craft used for the

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

invasion of Normandy, though this is unlikely as Jered was not founded until well after D-Day. Davies—who had also worked with the NASA's

Gemini space program Project Gemini () was NASA's second human spaceflight program. Conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, Gemini started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual a ...

and served as the mayor of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan—was the father of Ann Romney, wife of former Massachusetts governor and 2012 presidential nominee

. He died on September 8, 1992. Due to a successful business career and wise investments, Davies had amassed an estate worth millions of dollars. At the time of his death, Davies owned large properties and a 65-foot yacht.

Jered

Jered was sold to the British engineering firm Vickers in 1980, at Davies' retirement. (The division became an independent entity again in 1997 and was acquired in 2005 by

PaR Systems PAR Systems, Inc, is a systems engineering firm headquartered in Shoreview, Minnesota, specializing in automated manufacturing and material handling equipment. subsidiaries include Jered LLC, specializing in marine equipment and cargo handling sy ...

Religious views

Davies rejected religion and was an avowed

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

. Before Davies married Lois, he insisted she give up organized religion and later his son Roderick Davies said, "Dad considered people who were religious to be weak in the knees." By the time of his death, he was the only member of Ann Romney's immediate family to have not converted to Latter-day Saint Mormonism. In spite of his atheism and anti-religious views, on the 19th of November, 1993 in a special family meeting, just fourteen months after he died, he was

baptized Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...

and had his

endowment Endowment most often refers to: *A term for human penis size It may also refer to: Finance *Financial endowment, pertaining to funds or property donated to institutions or individuals (e.g., college endowment) *Endowment mortgage, a mortgage to b ...

performed for him. On the 10th of June, 1994 Davies, in another LDS Mormon temple ceremony, was

sealed Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impr ...

for eternity to his wife Lois in the Atlanta, Georgia temple.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davies, Edward Roderick 1915 births 1992 deaths Businesspeople from Michigan Kettering University alumni American atheists 20th-century American engineers Mayors of places in Michigan People from Bridgend County Borough British emigrants to the United States Welsh emigrants to the United States 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American politicians