Kathryn Wasserman Davis

Kathryn Stix Wasserman was born in Philadelphia on Feb. 25, 1907. She received a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley, in Massachusetts, a master’s in international relations from Columbia University and a doctorate from the University of Geneva in Switzerland. A lifelong globetrotter and a Russophile since her first visit to the Caucasus Mountains in 1929, she met the insurance investment magnate Shelby Cullom Davis on a train to Geneva in 1930. They were married on Jan. 4, 1932. Mr. Davis died in 1994. Mrs. Davis donated millions to Scenic Hudson, a group that works to clean the river and its environs, after taking up kayaking in her 90s near her home in Tarrytown, N.Y. In 2007, when she turned 100, she founded Davis Projects for Peace, which awards $10,000 grants to humanitarian endeavors around the world initiated by college students. Mrs. Davis was also a benefactor of higher education, giving to Ivy League universities like Harvard and Columbia and particularly to Wellesley College, her undergraduate alma mater, where she created the Davis Museum and Cultural Center. Mrs. Davis is survived by a daughter, Diana Davis Spencer; a son, Shelby; eight grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.