This image is the cover for the book Whatever It Takes

Whatever It Takes

For nearly seventy years, May and Jim Davidson shared a relentless drive to do “whatever it takes” to achieve success and happiness and, most importantly, to remain in their beloved Maine. They fell in love as teenagers, built their first house using twenty dollars worth of lumber, and set about creating the life of their dreams. They soon learned that optimism alone wouldn’t sustain them. To make ends meet, they lobstered, fished, farmed sheep, started a lobster trap sawmill, and crisscrossed the country as long haul truckers. They eventually collapsed into debt and uncertainty while trying to raise thousands of chickens, so they regrouped and fought their way out again using the sea as their inspiration. May Davidson’s tale is a decades-long tapestry of adventure, brutally hard work, lightheartedness, and risk-taking that serves to inspire any reader determined to live a rich life despite obstacles.

May Davidson

May Davidson was born in 1929 in Damariscotta, a charming fishing village located in midcoast Maine. In 1947, she graduated from Lincoln Academy, a private high school in the nearby town of Newcastle. She married her teenage sweetheart, James, a year later. Determined to stay in Maine, Davidson and her husband experimented with several entrepreneurial endeavors—from creating a lobster trap building facility to raising purebred sheep—before finding worldwide success with the design of the iconic Maine Buoy Bell. Today, she lives in Whitefield, Maine, and is known for her column in The Lincoln County News.