Thomas Denney Jr.–My Father
Dad was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Oskaloosa is a small town in the southeastern part of Iowa. As in most small Midwest towns, a family business was the way of life. The men ran an auto mechanic business where dad learned how machines worked. He also was an armature boxer in school and liked to ride horses. But when the call to arms came, he signed up with the United States Navy, in September 1942. He became a coxswain and spent time in the pacific.
While in the Navy he continued his boxing career and won several golden glove titles. After getting out of the Navy he boxed out of the Pena’s Gym in Davenport and won the Golden Gloves Award five years in a row. He had boxing equipment in the garage and spent a lot of time honing his skills. We loved to watch him work out and he was the envy of the neighborhood girls when he would jump rope and do ticks with the jump robe. Some of dad’s ancestors were street fighters. In the early 1900’s it was called bare-knuckle fighting. This would eventually become modern-day boxing.
Military Service
In 1944 Dad had recently returned from serving in the Navy when he met mom. He had been a Boson’s Mate on a PT boat and was stationed in the south Pacific. He told me once that his boat got separated from the rest of the fleet. They spent three weeks trying to stay away from the Japanese by hiding in the canals between islands. He said all they had to eat was peanut butter and crackers. We still have the whistle he used to relay commands to others on the ship.
He was also on the Day Star, a troop transport carrying men to the south Pacific. He was in Pearl Harbor as a member of the Shore Patrol during the attack. He said the island people called them white mice because of their white uniforms. He didn’t talk about the attack much; he lost a lot of friends there. After that is when he was stationed on the PT boat.
Civilian Life
I don’t know how my parents met. I either don’t remember or was never told. They were married on March 17th, 1945. That was probably why she dropped out of school. Mom was 18 years old and dad was 25. Mom told me they had a pretty rocky start. Dad liked to party with his buddies, and she wasn’t old enough to go along. She said I came along 18 months later, and that stopped a lot of the partying.
When I was five or six years old, we lived on a farm outside of Donahue, Iowa. Dad always wanted to be a farmer, even though he had grown up in the city. I remember helping in the garden and feeding the animals.
Dad was teaching my brother, Mike, and me how to drive the tractor when I forgot how to stop it. I drove right through the gate going into the pasture. Mike laughed, and Dad just shook his head.
Living on the farm was fun even though it was a lot of work. My brother Jimmy was born while we lived on the farm. Now I had another skill to learn, helping take care of a baby. I started school there and Dad sometimes drove me on the tractor if the snow was too deep for the bus. I remember one time, we got all the way there only to find the school was closed. We didn’t have telephones back then.
The last spring we were there a tornado came through and caught Dad in the shed. He had to take cover between the rear wheels of the tractor. It was raining so hard it was coming in around the door of the kitchen. Mom kept trying to mop it up to keep it from ruining the floor. There was a way to get to the cellar from the kitchen, and Mom told Mike and me to go down there. But we just sat at the top of the stairs and hugged each other.
We lost most of our cattle when the barn was blown over on top of them. Most of the chickens were gone, too. After the storm, we drove around and looked at all the damage. One of our neighbors had a tree down through the roof of their two-story house with the roots sticking out the top.
Not long after that storm, dad bought a piece of property in a subdivision called Green Acres on the north end of Davenport, Iowa. There was a cement block garage on it that we lived in. Mom hung curtains up for walls and Dad built a bathroom.
Dad was working at the box factory in Davenport and on the weekends worked at building mom her dream house. I remember one year on my birthday I had measles and was confined to the house. Mom had planned a family wiener roast and Dad sneaked hotdogs to me through the window. Mom said he was spoiling me. He always said a princess was supposed to be spoiled.
Living His Dream
It wasn’t too long after the house was finished that Mom’s and Dad’s best friends moved to the Ozarks to farm. They convinced my parents to sell out and move, too. Farmland was cheap and Dad still had his GI Bill, so they bought a place outside of Lebanon, Missouri, and started dairy farming. I was ten years old and in the fifth grade. The farm was close to Bennett Spring State Park, on what was an old Blackfoot Indian village.
It didn’t take long, for Dad to make a name in the community. He could fix anything and was a bit of an inventor. One time a storm blew the lights out at milking time. When the other farmers saw that we still had electricity, they wanted to know how he did it! True to his resourcefulness, he had taken the back tire off his big tractor and hooked a conveyor belt from it to an old motor to form a generator, so he could run his lights and milking machines! After that when a neighboring farmer had a problem with a piece of machinery they would come to dad.
The farm became the family vacation spot. Relatives would come to get away from the city. Dad always took advantage of the extra help, especially at planting or harvest time. We kids worked in the fields, barns, and garden right alongside Mom and Dad. He used to tell people “I’ve got four strapping boys, but two wear dresses on Sunday!”
Saying Good-Bye
My father died during my sophomore year of high school. He had cancer of the pancreas and was only 39 years old. I was attending school in Fort Smith, AK. I was studying to be a medical missionary. I had been away at school for several months when I got our first break of the year. I rode to Springfield with the family of another girl when I found out that dad was in the hospital. When I went in mom met me in the hall outside his room and told me he had been in a coma for a week and didn’t know anyone and not to be too upset when I went in to see him. I went to the side of his bed and said “Dad it’s Judy I am home.” He opened his eyes and looked at me and said “My princess I have been waiting for you.” The doctors didn’t know how he had lived for the past week. The human spirit can do amazing things.
To This Day
My dad was my best friend as well as my hero. I could always ask him anything and he would stop what he was doing and talk to me. I was 14 when he died but we had a relationship that has lasted a lifetime. I still find myself asking him what to do in a situation. Since I have developed in my Christian faith I have learned that my constant companion is now the Holy Spirit. How sweet that His voice sounds just like daddy. Thank You, Lord.
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