Inducted 2005

Anna was an original member of the legendary Chuck Wagon Gang.  Born Effie Carter on February 15, 1917, in Noel, MO, she learned to sing as a child from the example of her parents, David and Carrie Carter.  

In 1935, she contracted pneumonia and it was this situation and the need for medicine that prompted her father to take his oldest son Ernest and his oldest daughter Lola to audition for a spot on Lubbock, TX, KFYO.  After recovering, Effie also joined the group and, as the Carter Quartet, they sang at the station daily for the next year.  In 1936, the four Carters auditioned and received a spot of Ft Worth’s powerful WBAP radio and, for the next 15 years, sang on a daily program sponsored by Bewley Flour Mills under the name the Chuck Wagon Gang.  

The names of the individual group members also changed and Effie became known as Anna.  As a member of the Chuck Wagon Gang, Anna’s smooth alto voice characterized one of the best-known groups in Southern Gospel Music history.  

In 1936, the group began recording for Columbia Records and, for the next four decades, became one of the company’s best-selling artists.  In the early 1950s, the Chuck Wagon Gang began appearing in concerts on Wally Fowler’s all-night sings.  

Anna continued to sing with the group through the 1960s even after the death of her first husband who was the group’s guitarist, Howard Gordon.  In 1969, she married former Louisiana Governor Jimmie Davis and soon curtailed her activities with the Chuck Wagon Gang in order to sing as part of the Jimmie Davis Trio.  Together, the Davises became true ambassadors for Southern Gospel Music, singing in concerts and always supporting and promoting the good news of Jesus Christ in song.