Rosalie Davis broke ground for herself in the old boys' club. She fixed cars, drove school buses and took her children camping and fishing during her time off. She provided for her nine children and held her family together with her love and her cooking.

Davis was strict, but only because she cared, and everyone respected her for it, relatives say. Her grandchildren would put away their phones and pull up their pants when she was around. And the children on her school bus knew not to get too rowdy.

The strong-willed matriarch, a Minneapolis resident, died of kidney failure March 23. She was 78.

"She loved her family and would do anything for us," said her daughter, Mary Davis. "She was just remarkable."

Davis grew up in Missouri, where she married Albert Davis. Her husband worked on the construction team that built the St. Louis Gateway Arch.

In Missouri, Davis sold junk to feed her family. "When we lived in St. Louis we might have ate late, but we always were fed," said her oldest daughter, Sheila White.

Rosalie Davis

Davis moved from Missouri to Minnesota in 1971 with her children. The divorced single mom went to trade school and learned how to become a mechanic and to weld. She was hired as a mechanic for Sears Roebuck and Co. Whenever someone in the family needed their car fixed, they came to Davis.

Her son Albert Davis Jr. said his mother taught him how to fix cars.

"She certainly played the role of mom and dad," her son said. Davis also took the role of mother to her 2-year-old great-grandson when his mother, Sharice Pollard, went missing in 1992. White said she needed to know that the little boy would be OK.

Davis later worked as a Minneapolis School District bus driver for about 15 years. White said her mother was strict with the students on her bus but that they loved her for it. Three of her own children followed her lead and went to work as bus drivers.

Brenda Mundy, 50, befriended Davis' daughter Starlette in middle school. She said she remembers how strict Davis was, but also how caring.

"She was one of the original pay-it-forward kind of people," she said. "If she saw something in you … she was always nice to you."

While living in north Minneapolis, Davis played on a softball league at The Way, a community center led by civil rights activist Henry "Spike" Moss, which was once located on Plymouth Avenue near where the Police Department's Fourth Precinct headquarters stands.

"I remember being dragged to practice, Mary Davis said. "Looking back, it was priceless."

Once, she said, her mother took her to see Prince preform at The Way back when "he was a nobody."

Over the holidays, Davis got the whole family together with her cooking. Davis would cook up a pot of macaroni and cheese for 50 people. She often kept a video recorder in the corner of her room to capture memories of her family enjoying the holidays and her food.

"She never wanted to forget the whole family together," Mary Davis said.

Davis was preceded in death by two children, Deborah Ann White and Baxter (Billy) Davis. She survived by seven children, Sheila White, Pamela White, Kim Griffin, Starlette Cumming, Albert Davis Jr., Donna Davis and Mary JoAnne Davis; a sister, Erma Jean Poe; a brother, Charles Henry White, and 29 grandchildren.

Services have been held.

Beatrice Dupuy • 952-746-3281