Jacob Paul Davis

Jacob Paul Davis, 39, of Robinson, IL, passed away unexpectedly on December 22, 2025. Paul was born on December 14, 1986, in St. Louis, MO. He grew up in Union, MO, until he was ten, then in DeFuniak Springs, FL, and later moved to Panama City. About a year ago, he moved to Robinson to be near family. Wherever he lived, though, Paul remained unmistakably Paul: creatively restless, sharp-minded, and straightforward to the core.

After all, Paul was a truth teller. He was not afraid to say what he saw, whether you liked it or not. He took pride in being the smartest guy in the room, and often, he was. He read widely and relentlessly, mostly non-fiction, anything from philosophy to physics, because he was always curious. Conversations with Paul could cover almost anything (and they usually did), because he carried a working library in his head and a need to test ideas in the open.

That same honesty showed up in his sense of humor. Paul was sarcastic, witty, and quick, the kind of person who could slice through the nonsense with a single sentence. He loved comedy, especially stand-up. Bill Burr was a favorite, and anyone who knew Paul could see the resemblance: the edge, the timing, the blunt clarity, and the ability to make you laugh even when you weren’t prepared to. His humor had rhythm, a sense of timing you either have or you don’t. It makes sense, then, that Paul was drawn to the places where timing matters.

Music, for Paul, was not a genre. It was a range. He had a record player that played everything from Billie Holiday to modern music, and he loved it all. He didn’t just listen, either. He played. He loved guitar, and in his late teens and early 20s, he played in a pop/punk band called Strong Signal, contributing rhythm guitar and drums, the kind of parts that don’t always get the spotlight but hold everything together. That was Paul in a nutshell. He could be private, but he was never passive. He made things move.

Paul worked in the building trades for many years, a steady line running through a creative life. He knew how to show up, do the work, and build something real. And while he wasn’t one for crowds, he had his people, and he had his dogs, and he was deeply loyal to both. This last year, that loyalty looked like a standing tee time: Sundays at Deer Run with his dad and brother-in-law. Paul genuinely loved it. It became one more place where he could be himself, present with the people he chose. And even when he wasn’t around a lot of people, Paul still left pieces of himself behind. Sometimes, in ink.

Paul drew people, and he had an ability to bring out the character in them, often with a hard edge. Starting when he was young, he left drawings everywhere, little pieces of himself scattered across whatever paper was available. If you knew him, you likely had many of his pieces. It might be on a cruddy piece of paper, but the work was fantastic. Over the course of his life, he made thousands of works, and ink pens were his implement of choice. It was a bold medium, and it mattered to him that you couldn’t erase. The ink forced him to work with his mistakes, to adapt, to commit, to turn the imperfect into something that still told the truth. In a lot of ways, that was Paul’s approach to life, too.

In the end, that may be the truest way to remember Paul: a man who lived in bold lines. No erasing. No pretending. Just the real thing. And for the ones he let close, that realness was a gift. It stays, like ink on paper, like a favorite song that you will forever know by heart. And if you listen closely, you can still hear it: not the noise, but the pulse; the steady beat of a man who moved to his own rhythm.

He is survived by his parents, Jim & Robin (Dotson) Davis; his sister & brother-in-law, Dawn & Daniel Keeton; by his brother & sister-in-law, Nick & Delisa Davis; by his nieces and nephews, Victoria, Cayman, Eric, Blaze, Ricky, and Autumn; by his aunt, Christy & Dan Carmichael (and their family); and by his former wife and best friend, Hillary Parker (and her family).

Paul is to be cremated without public services. The Goodwine Funeral Home in Robinson is assisting his family at this time.