Excerpted from the Nashville Tennessean, Aug. 21, 1997
Conservator Named For Jim Reeves' Widow
By KIRK LOGGINS
The financial affairs of country singing star Jim Reeves' widow are still unsettled a year after Reeves' niece asked that a conservator be appointed for Mary Reeves Davis and that the sale of her assets be enjoined.
His widow, 68, who has spent the last year in nursing homes in Murfreesboro and Nashville, signed a series of documents in mid-1996 selling all of her assets, including the Jim Reeves Museum, for $7.3 million -- and transferring half of the sale proceeds to her second husband, Terry Davis.
Davidson County Probate Judge Frank Clement, Jr. named her nephew yesterday as her conservator, despite testimony from Reeves' niece, who said she fears that Davis' relatives have been intimidated by her husband.
Reeves' niece, Lani Thomas Arnold, said that Mary Reeves Davis' brother, Dr. W.D. White, reported that Terry Davis claimed to have sexually explicit photographs of his wife that might "embarrass" her family if the family challenges a trust agreement giving him half of Mary Reeves Davis' assets. Clement named White temporary conservator for his sister in January.
Billie Perryman, who was formerly Mary Reeves Davis' partner in a radio station, said she had heard that Terry Davis claimed to have "lesbian" photographs of his wife.
When W.D. White asked her about the photographs, Perryman said, she told him "It's untrue...She liked boys."
Terry Davis, a former Baptist minister who married Mary Reeves in 1969, five years after her singer husband was killed in a plane crash, denied yesterday that he had ever seen -- or told anyone he had seen -- photographs that might embarrass his wife.
Clement said he is confident that Mary Reeves Davis' nephew, William H. White, a Baptist minsiter from Duncanville, Texas, will use "independent judgment" in deciding how to handle her money.
Arnold filed a Probate Court petition last Aug. 28, questioning how much influence her aunt's husband had on her June 1996 decision to sell all of her assets, including the rights to Jim Reeves' name and record royalties, to United Shows of America Inc. for $7.3 million.
Mary Reeves Davis had signed an earlier trust agreement in April 1996 -- at Arnold's urging -- putting all of her property into a trust and providing that her husband receive $5,000 a month for the rest of his life. That agreement, which Mary Reeves Davis revoked in May 1996, suggested that Arnold be allowed to operate a gift shop if she were able to get Jim Reeves' memorabilia returned to Shreveport, where he began his singing career in the 1950s.
Terry Davis, 65, has denied exerting any improper influence on his wife to get her to sign the sale and trust agreements benefiting him. He said last Fall that she had no need for a court-appointed conservator to handle her affairs, even though doctors said she was suffering from "senile dementia."
But Davis acknowledged last Winter that his wife needed a conservator because her mental condition had deteriorated rapidly. He has twice asked to be appointed as her conservator, but twice dropped that request when lawyers in the case insisted on questioning him about his wife's mental condition and his handling of her finances.
Mary Reeves Davis has lived for the last several months in the Health Center at Richland Place, an upscale nursing home off West End Avenue. Clement told William White yesterday to decide by Nov. 4 whether he wants to challenge the sale of Mary Reeves Davis' assets or the trust agreement benefiting her husband.