[a] Because her grandfather thought she had a lot of energy for a young child, he nicknamed Mary Frances "Skeeter" (slang for mosquito), a name she carried for the rest of her life.

[7] On one occasion, her mother attempted to leap from the family's apartment window with Davis and her infant brother in her arms.

[14] In the summer of 1948, Davis and her family relocated to Covington, Kentucky, where her father was working as an electrician and moved into a house owned by the Villa Madonna Academy, run by Benedictine nuns.

[16] While attending Dixie Heights High School in Erlanger, Skeeter met Betty Jack Davis, and the two became close friends, bonding over their love of music.

[19] On a trip to the Grand Ole Opry, the two convinced a stage manager to allow them backstage, where they met Hank Williams and Chet Atkins.

In the spring of 1953, Skeeter and Betty Jack met with Sholes at RCA's headquarters in New York City, and were offered a recording contract.

The record ranks number 65 on the Top 100 Country Singles of All Time, according to Billboard historian Joel Whitburn.

Around 7:00 am on August 2, near Cincinnati, a passing motorist fell asleep at the wheel, crashing head-on with the car in which Skeeter and Betty Jack Davis were riding.

[33] Newspaper bulletins at the time erroneously reported that both the Davis Sisters had been pronounced dead at Our Lady of Sorrow Hospital in Cincinnati.

She recounted in her autobiography that Ollie "took advantage of this tragic situation to suit her own ends”, alleging that she had kept Skeeter sedated with drugs from a local dentist and sequestered her in the house, where she repeatedly played the girls' records.

[38] Between 1954 and 1956, Skeeter and Georgia released a total of nine singles for RCA as the Davis Sisters, which they recorded in New York City and Chicago, and toured the United States as a part of the RCA Caravan of the Stars alongside Minnie Pearl, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and Chet Atkins, among others.

[44] She resumed performing as a solo act, touring with Ernest Tubb, and co-wrote and recorded the song "Set Him Free" for RCA, produced by Chet Atkins.

[49] She subsequently cowrote and recorded another top-20 hit called ‘Homebreaker’ , which peaked at number 15 on the Hot Country Songs chart in November 1959.

[52][53] "(I Can't Help You) I'm Falling Too" marked Davis's first entrance as a solo artist onto the Billboard pop charts in 1960[54] and resulted in her being invited to perform on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

In 1963, Davis achieved her biggest success with country pop crossover hit "The End of the World".

[59] Davis's success continued with "I'm Saving My Love" and 1964's "Gonna Get Along Without You Now", an updated cover of a 1956 hit by Patience and Prudence.

In 1965, she recorded a duet with Bobby Bare called "A Dear John Letter", which just missed the country top 10.

[60] The following year, she earned her third Grammy nomination for "Sun Glasses", which peaked at number 30 on the Hot Country Songs chart.

[62] In the late 1960s, she recorded several full-length albums, including two tribute works: Skeeter Davis Sings Buddy Holly (1967) and I Love Flatt and Scruggs (1968).

[63] Davis's recording of the anti-war song "One Tin Soldier", released in 1972, earned her an appearance on The Midnight Special.

[64] The single was a major success in Canada, peaking as a top-ten hit on RPM country and adult contemporary charts.

Singles such as "It's Hard to Be a Woman" and "Love Takes a Lot of My Time" failed to crack the country top 40.

[66] Davis had the first and only controversy of her career when, during a 1973 Grand Ole Opry performance, she dedicated a gospel song to a group of young church workers whom she noted in her introduction had been arrested for evangelizing at a local mall.

[76] Their marriage was tumultuous, with Davis recalling that Emery was jealous and controlling of her, refusing to let her work more than a few days per month, obsessively calling her while she was on tour and recurrently accusing her of infidelity: "Ralph accused me of being with everybody from guitar players to agents to producers to my hairdresser and believe it or not, to my brother and sister.

[79] Davis partly attributed her vegetarianism to her Christianity, as she felt killing animals for consumption was incongruent with her religious beliefs.

[84] Bob Dylan also recorded a version of "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know" featuring the Davis Sisters' arrangements on his 1970 album Self Portrait.