Dewey Gant

Dewey Gant, my grandfather, was born in Chanute, Kansas on November 15, 1932. As a young boy, Dewey experienced many hardships including World War II, losing his mother, and having to spend a short period of time in an orphanage. Although these hardships accompanied Dewey in his childhood, he still argues that they were the best times of his life. As a small boy growing up and having the time of his life in Pittsburg, Kansas, he never would have guessed that ten years later he would be traveling the world with the United States Navy. Dewey fought in the Navy during the Korean War; and after the war, he spent the next six years in the United States Air Force. After he served for ten years in the armed forces, he started a truck driving career that would last for forty-five years.

My name is Dewey Gant, and I am a veteran of the Korean War. I was born in Chanute, Kansas on November 15,1932. My father was a painter, paperhanger and my mother was a housewife. I had two sisters and two brothers; all but my younger brother were older than me. My younger brother and I were closer than the rest of us. Our house had three rooms: a big front room, a small bedroom, and a kitchen. And let’s see, a little house out back.

I was born during the Depression. About all I know about the Depression is what I was told. My mother died when my little brother was born. She died of double pneumonia during childbirth. On account of my mother dying, my dad kind of blamed him [my younger brother]* for it. So we had to go into an orphanage; but he [ my baby brother] went to a family, and they took him in and the rest of us went to an orphanage. We stayed there until my dad cold get a job and take care of us, and he did. Then he met my step-mother and got married. My dad never told any of us [about my younger brother]. I didn’t even know he existed. I was just a baby [when I went in to the orphanage]. But when I met him [my younger brother] one day, I came home from school. It was a cold day, and I walked up into the yard and I seen this little kid standing out in the yard and I went up there. I said, “Hi.”

And he said, “Hi.”

And I said, “Well, where do you live?” And he pointed to my house. I said, “No, I live there.”

And he said, “Me too.” He was just a little squirt.

So I went into the house and I said, “Hey Dad, there is a little kid in the yard and says he lives here.”

My dad says, “He does. That’s your brother.”

For fun we did almost anything we could think up. We were outside almost constantly. We were just kids, ya know, we played horseshoes; and in the summer time we went swimming in the swimming holes—back in those days, we went in our birthday suits. I had a friend that had an old Model T Ford, we used to go to the gas station and buy a fruit jar full of gas, about a quart jar full. We would take that gas back to his house and put it in that old car, and that was enough gas to get us from his house to the old swimming hole and back. When we got back, we would run out of gas right in the yard. We didn’t drag race back then. [When] we wanted to know which car was the most powerful, we’d get on a bridge and back the two cars up against each other, and put them in reverse and see which one could push the other one off the bridge. We also went to the park a lot. The park was open until 10:00 p.m. Schlanger Park—they did all kinds of things over there at that time. They had horseshoes, and swings, shuffle board, and a swimming pool. Most of the time that’s where we would go when I was a little kid.

I worked at a bowling alley when I was a kid. I started out at around seven years old. Then, for a little while, I was a delivery boy for Gutteridge Pharmacy—until I broke my collarbone, then I had to quit. I made seventy dollars a month. But on the other, setting the pins, I made, oh…it depends on how much I worked, and I would usually make six dollars a week.

(I didn’t graduate) senior high, I graduated from Roosevelt Junior High. Well, then I went into the National Guard for a short time. After that, me and my folks moved to Salt Lake City. From there I went into the Navy, went to San Diego for training. My training was shorten because the Korean War broke out. So, when it come time to have a boot leave, everyone got a boot leave, I didn’t—on account of the war we went right out of boot camp to duty somewhere. I got a destroyer, and that’s where I had to go. I didn’t see home for a year. I went to Japan, Korea, China, of course Hawaii, and Midway of all the places along the way. We worked as a unit with the South Korean commandos. They came aboard our ship, and they had these little wooden boats called sampans. There was about, I would guess twenty of them. The oldest one was twenty-one years old. It went from twenty-one down to thirteen. And their commander, he was a lieutenant, that was the twenty-one year old. He said that he would rather have these young boys than grown men because they take orders and it didn’t mean anything to them to kill somebody. When we took them up, it was way up north of the 38^th parallel, they would find targets for the ship and take prisoners.

Anyway, one night they came back and they [the North Koreans] noticed them. They started after them, and they started shooting at them. Well, we started shooting back with the big guns to give them protection. We sent the whale boat to get them, and they had prisoners. On the way back, I guess one of the prisoners panicked and this young soldier grabbed him by the hair and cut his throat. He couldn’t take the chance of all the rest of them pulling the same thing. Anyways, they got them back on ship, and we had to put them in a forward post. We used that for a brig. We put them in there, and we had to clean them up and de-louse them.

One day—I was a machinist mate—I was what they called a snipe. I worked down in the engine rooms, but my general quarters station, that’s my battle station, was on a 40mm gun mount. Anyway, one day I was down on duty, we had a call, I started out, and you’ve gotta wait until your relief gets to you, he’s the one that’s his battle station. You see, I ran a feed pump what they call, fed the water to the boilers. Anyways, I had to wait for that guy to get there and he was a little late, well that threw me late. And I ran up to the ladder to go up on deck. Just as I got to the top, the guy who secures those hatches triggered that hatch, just as my head cleared it. And that thing came down and hit me right on top of the head. It drove me clear down to the deck plates. Anyway, it didn’t knock me out. I just picked myself up, and went back up the ladder and went on to my battle station.

I was a crash firefighter when I was in the Air Force. (I was stationed in Morocco). In Morocco, different cultures, they’re just that, drastically different. You really learn from it. When I went over there, it was French Morocco. The French ran the place, they knew how to deal with the Moroccans. We just would take care of our base.

(When I was done with the Air Force and everything), I came back home. Well, first I went to Hays, Kansas. My sister was living out there and worked out there, but then I got tired of that, and then I came home. My dad passed away when I was in Morocco. My step-mother was living in Iola, that was her home, but I came back here [Pittsburg] and started working. I wanted to be a carpenter, that’s what I had in mind. Well, I was doing okay, and then one time this ol’ boy came up and said, “Hey, I hear you can drive a truck.”

I said, “Well, I drove a fire truck when I was in the Air Force.”

And he said, “You want to drive a truck for me?”

And I said, “I’ll do that for ya.” He had a problem that he needed to take care of. That was the biggest mistake I ever made. Anyway, I drove his truck until he got everything ironed out, and I went back to being a carpenter. So, one day I’m up on a roof of a house—roofing it you know—and here comes another guy. “Hey!” It was ol’ Bill Hoffer, he owned Hoffer Trucking.

I said, “Yeah?”

And he says, “You want a truck driving job?”

I said, “Well, not really. I got a job.”

He said, “Well, I’ve got a brand new truck and I need a driver, and if you’re interested, then its yours.”

And I said, “Well, let me think about it.” That night I went out there and there was that truck, brand new. Boy, oh boy! And that’s all I’ve been doing ever since, about forty-five years. (Then I met Wanda) in 1978, and we got married in 1980.

Text in brackets was added by the editor to facilitate understanding.

This oral history was researched and prepared by Ashly Delmez, January 2004.