Obituaries

William Myron DavisTranslator, College Professor

William Myron Davis, 72, a linguist and former college professor who worked as a translator for the FBI, died Dec. 31 at his home in Silver Spring of complications from pancreatic cancer.

Dr. Davis, who was fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Catalan and German, worked 11 years for the FBI before retiring in the early 1990s.

Earlier, he had served on the faculty as a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at St. Louis University, the University of Florida, the Stephen A. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Tex., Christian Brothers College in Memphis and what is now the University of Memphis.

Dr. Davis was a native of New York and a graduate of Queens College. He received a master's degree in French from Columbia University and a doctorate in Portuguese and Brazilian literature from New York University. In retirement, he wrote articles, book reviews and translations of poetry published in Portuguese, Spanish and German.

He also volunteered as a translator at Washington Adventist Hospital.

Survivors include his wife, Carmen Elena Davis of Silver Spring; a son, William Henrique Davis of Kensington, and a daughter, Claire Davis of Brooklyn, N.Y.; and five grandchildren.

Ethel M. PhillipsLegal Secretary

Ethel M. Phillips, 90, a legal secretary at Montgomery County law firms in the 1960s and 1970s, died Jan. 4 at Appalachian Christian Village nursing home in Johnson City, Tenn., She had pneumonia.

Mrs. Phillips worked at Kardy, Brannan & Neumann as well as Staley, Prescott & Ballman, among other firms.

Ethel Milstead, a Silver Spring native, was a 1934 graduate of the old Takoma-Silver Spring High School and a graduate of Strayer Business College in Washington. Early on, she did secretarial work for the Farm Security Administration.

She was a member of Marvin Memorial United Methodist Church in Silver Spring, where she had been a Sunday school teacher and directed the children's choir, among other activities.

Her hobbies included playing Scrabble and gardening.