Don's "Diaper Trouble"

 

Wesley Hospital, Wichita, Kansas

Since my dad worked for Boeing aircraft, which was considered essential to the war effort, he managed to avoid the draft during WWII, but two of his brothers served in the Pacific Theater, and they carried on a steady correspondence with him throughout the war. Don’s youngest brother, J.E., was in the navy, but he didn’t have to go overseas.

Letters from the front were all read by a military censor, so Boyd and Everett couldn’t say anything about what they actually going through, so they chatted about superficial things, and commented about the things Don told them in his letters.

The following is one of the letters Don got from his younger brother Everett, who had survived the attack on Pearl Harbor (see post of September 20, 2015). The letter was written in October of 1942, from the Pacific, where he would soon be embroiled in the Battle of Guadalcanal – but more about that later.

Oct 21, 1942, USS San Francisco. To Don Gunning 3112 E 3^rd, Wichita

Dear Don, Your letters have been coming with every mail. You won’t have anything new to tell Jimmy’s Mother from this letter. Your letters are always full of good news tho. Your diaper trouble sounds critical. My girlfriends have all decided out of sight out of mind. They never write. It is comforting to know someone is concerned with my welfare, sometimes I am disturbed about my outcome also. Tell everyone hello.

Your Bud, Everett.

In his comment about “diaper trouble,” Everett was teasing Don about a rectal fistula he developed about the time I was born. A rectal fistula is basically an abscess of the buttocks that drains pus through a hole in the rectum, leaking onto your underwear, hence the diaper reference. My dad would kill me if he knew I was telling this story. Maybe he’s looking down on me right now, saying, “wait ‘til I get my hands on him.”

Anyway, in addition to the nuisance, it must have hurt pretty bad, and it might have caused a fever too. My parents always attributed the fistula to my dad’s having to sit out on the hospital steps waiting to get in to see Wenonah after I was born, but I doubt if that would have caused it.

After Wenonah brought me home from the hospital and settled into a routine, Don went to the doctor to see about his fistula, and was referred to a proctologist, a doctor who specializes in that sort of thing.

The proctologist told Don he would need to open the fistula, and he admitted him to a hospital for the surgery, probably Wesley Hospital, where I was born. After the procedure, he kept him there for several days, to observe the wound, and to have the nurses change the dressings.

Don’s roommate in the hospital was a professional roofer who had been hospitalized for a back injury. Apparently he had backed up to admire his work and accidentally stepped off the roof. Don enjoyed listening to the roofer’s stories. He had had a lot of falls, and seemed to consider them just part of the job. The roofer had a large family, all involved in the roofing business, and in the evenings they would all gather around his bed, and laugh and talk about their experiences. Don entertained the family for years with stories about the roofers.

Don had only one problem with his roommate. On the first evening after he was admitted, his family brought him a bowl of grapes that was infested with gnats. Don spent the rest of his hospital stay swatting gnats.

When Don came home, the doctor instructed Wenonah on how to treat the wound. Since a fistula is an infection, the wound can’t be closed, so it was left open, and Wenonah was to apply a sulfonamide paste every day. Preparing the paste was a complicated process involving heating the sulfonamide powder to liquefy it. The result was a caustic mixture that caused Don to “rise up off the bed in pain” according to my mother, whenever she applied it.

The other story my dad told about his experience was going in to see his doctor for follow up visits. Apparently the doctor wasn’t a people person, and couldn’t recognize his patients when he met them, so when would enter an examining room, his nurse would prompt him by saying something like, “Dr. Brown, this is Mr. Gunning.”

Well, one day when my dad went in for his visit, the nurse forgot to make the introduction. Unfazed by the omission, the doctor went right to work, asking Don to pull down his pants and to bend over. When the doctor looked at my dad’s butt – he swore this is true – he said, “Oh, Mr. Gunning.”

June 2, 1942

Wenonah, Don and me, with Don's best friend, Bud Bickford (L)

In spite of my mother’s prodigious memory, she always saved things that reminded her of people and events. She started as a child, with a little box of keepsakes: the little red donkeys off of Grandpa’s chewing tobacco wrappers, the little crucifix that Pappa sent her from San Antonio, and the string of beads she bought with the dime Pappa gave her to spend when she went to the district meet in Ada, Oklahoma.

When Wenonah was older she began to take an interest in politics. I guess that was natural, since her older brother Snip, short for Homer, was a state senator. She saved newspaper clippings that mentioned him, and also stories about other prominent people and notable events. She must have got that from Mama, her mother, who had newspaper articles dating back to 1910.

Anyway, Wenonah’s dedication to preserving memories has been a wonderful thing for me, because I’ve inherited her keepsakes, pictures, letters and newspaper clippings. She started making memories for me on the day she brought me home from the hospital, by buying a newspaper and saving the front page.

It was Thursday, June 2, 1942, and it makes fascinating reading.

There were no less than twenty stories related to World War II. For example:

Midwest Warned to Expect enemy Air Raids: Wichita Cited Among cities Now in Danger.

Assassins’ bullets Thursday brought death to Reinhard Heydrich, No. 2 man of the Gestapo, whose ruthless tactics gained him the title “Der Henker” - the hangman.

British Dislodge Rommel from Libyan Stronghold

Nazis Stalled on Red Front

Senate Votes Balkan War: Resolutions Passed Against Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania

Gas Rationing Ires Congress

Commemorate Pearl Harbor In Celebration Here Sunday: Six Months Anniversary

There were only two front page stories that didn’t concern the war: The news of Charlie Chaplin’s divorce from Paulette Goddard, and that of an unruly elephant which had been banished from the Wichita zoo and relocated to a nearby farm.

It seems remarkable to me that Wichita, Kansas, would be expecting an air raid. The long range bombers of the day had a maximum range of 2000 miles or so. Neither Japan nor Germany had an airfield close enough to even bomb our coasts, let alone Wichita, 1500 miles inland, but this is the degree of panic that gripped the country at the time.

The second page of the paper had several stories that concerned our family more directly. Property owners were protesting the freezing of rents, which had risen to outrageous levels because of the shortage of housing for workers at the aircraft plants, and the renters were protesting being evicted on flimsy grounds so that property owners could raise rents. Wenonah’s landlady used a different tact. She burned her trash next to the clothes line where my diapers were drying. Wenonah wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper about her:

The World’s Meanest Landlady

A Home Town News reader writes that she has just discovered the “meanest landlady.” The woman burned her trash in the incinerator directly beneath the clothesline where a line of baby’s diapers were hanging. The baby’s things had been carefully washed with a mild soap, boiled, rinsed over and over again, and finally disinfected. “To a mother,” the reader writes, “that was nothing short of a crime.”

Still getting no cooperation, Wenonah told Don she that she couldn’t take it any longer, that she had to get away from that woman. So Don and Bud looked for us a house. We couldn’t afford to buy one, but they located a little house for rent in a nice neighborhood, and we moved. The house was on S. Bluff. There wasn’t much of a yard, but there was no incinerator next door either.

Geronimo

(These last few posts continue Wenonah’s Story from the point where the book ends, and so they’re bound to raise questions – questions about all these characters: Boyd, Everett, Kaliteyo, Oteka, Lahoma, Lacquanna, Dr. McNeill, Bud Bickford, Mr. Pepper, and there will be more. I’ll explain as best I can, without giving away the story told in the book.) 

After Pearl Harbor, Uncle Boyd, my dad’s older brother, joined the army. He was put in the artillery and made a lieutenant because of his ROTC training. Within six months he had been promoted to captain and was in the middle of the fighting at Guadalcanal. I think my dad would have volunteered too except that my mother pleaded with him to stay with her. She had missed a period and believed that she was pregnant.

Wenonah didn’t get much support for her diagnosis at first. Dr. McNeill, the doctor who had cured her stomach cramps and constipation, told her: “No. Little Geronimo’s not coming yet.” He was wrong, but the name stuck, at least for a while. I was “Little Geronimo” until I was born.

My mother’s first and only pregnancy was pretty hectic. My dad’s best friend, Bud Bickford, had quit Pepper’s and had gone to work for Boeing Aircraft in Wichita, Kansas. As soon as he was settled, he wrote and told Don that he should apply for a job there. Mr. Peppers still hadn’t moved Don into his accounting department, and he was tired of working in the refinery, so Don went up to Wichita to check out Boeing.

With the country gearing up for war, Boeing was turning out fighters and bombers as fast as they could, and hiring people in every department. They told Don he could go to work in accounting as soon as he could get to Wichita, so he and Wenonah packed up their Packard and headed north.

I remember that Packard. It was big, and black, and it had a running board. My parents owned it until I was seven or eight. I used to think it would be fun to ride, standing on the running board, but Wenonah wouldn’t let me.

When Wenonah and Don got to Wichita, they had trouble finding a place to stay. With so many people being hired at Boeing, apartments were scarce. Finally Bud and his roommate moved out of their apartment, so that we would have a place to stay.

My dad’s first job at Boeing was to compile manuals and procedures for their expanded accounting department. Wenonah told me his chief worry about her upcoming delivery was that I might turn out to be a girl. She told him that you treat a little girl just the same as you do a little boy. My name would have been Emily if I had been a girl, after Grandmother Paul’s mother.

I was born a boy though, on May 31, 1942, and Don sent out telegrams to both Grandmother Paul and to my Gunning grandparents.

Grandmother Paul was the first to reply. I think she was still having a hard time believing that Wenonah (Jim) had really gotten married. Everyone thought she would remain a career woman, and a spinster. 

Dear Don,                                                                                                      June 2, 1942.

I received your telegram. Am glad it is over. Let me know how Jim is, tell her that she has done herself proud. I am proud of her. Lots of love. Jim, who would have thought it, the world is getting good. The name is Geronimo, the world’s greatest Indian.

Proud and anxious Grandmother Victoria.

Soon afterwards came a letter from Grandmother Gunning:

Dearest Don Jimmy and Robin                                                                 June 6, 1942.

I am so anxious to go up to see you all I hope you are doing fine Jim. I know Robin must be a grand baby. From his father’s description. Don, have a little patience you can see the baby all you want to when you get them home. (The maternity ward visiting hours were very limited and Don would get to the hospital early and sit on the steps until he could get in.) I had thought I would be up there this Sun. but on second thought decided as they are so strict at the hospital I had better wait till next Sunday then you will all be home and I can see the baby and hold him too. It will be hard to wait that long but I will be seeing you sure soon. I am so glad your sister can be with you for a while when you get home (Aunt Kaliteyo). Mother (Laura Boyd, my great grandmother) has gone out to Alta’s (my great aunt) for a few days. She has been here quilting on Robin’s quilt. J.E. (My uncle J E was in highschool then) got the announcement. He was thrilled felt quite honored. He is sleeping this A.M. was out to a hop last night. Let us hear from you. Lots of love to all.

Mother Dad & J.E.

My great grandmother Boyd was still living then, although I don’t remember her, and she made me a quilt.

In the meantime Grandmother Paul had written again:

Dear Don and Jim (Wenonah).                                                                 June 4, 1942.

Received telegram Mon. & letter just now. So glad everyone is happy & that Jim and Geronimo are almost ready to go on the warpath. I am especially proud of the name you gave the Baby (Robin Rosser) & I believe you both will make excellent parents. Or Teachers. I am busy trying to finish the quota that I signed for & I think I will resign then that will be this month. This work takes all my time. I am tired. (She’s referring to her Red Cross work here, but she didn’t quit.)

            I have a nice little Garden. & you should see the day Lilies. They are as high as my head. & Madonna Lilies & Tiger Lilies. I have every kind of Marigold that was in the catalogue. I am canning everything that I have to can. You all can load up if you ever have time to come down.

I am planning to go to Anadarko. Lahoma is going to dance (Lahoma, Aunt Kaliteyo’s daughter, was representing the Chickasaw tribe as princess) She is as large as those big squaws.

Say, Tom has a perfectly beautiful little Girl. Her name is Lacquanna. (My cousin Lacquanna was born just two months before.)

Excuse haste lots of love & good luck with Son. Jim write when you can. Haskell and Lahoma are thrilled about the baby. Don write. I am sending announcements to the boys.

Love, Vick

Wenonah had been at a loss as to what to call me. I guess she figured the male names in her family had all been used up, so she started searching for new ideas. It was my dad who came up with the name Robin. It was springtime and the robins were singing and building their nests, so he said, “Why don’t we name him Robin?”

I haven’t been completely happy with the name of Robin. There are too many girls with the name. I would have been happy with “Don,” after my father, but he squelched that idea, or even “Geronimo,” although that one would be a little hard to live up to. My middle name Rosser came from the sir name of my mother’s beloved grandfather.

My dad said that every morning it was his job to change me and that I would pee on his shirt, so I guess I was getting even with him for naming me Robin.

Jim and Don's Honeymoon

First, a little apology:

I’ve decided to call Wenonah by her first name, Jim, short for her first name James, because that’s what everyone called her while I was growing up. Actually I did too. I called my parents Jim and Don, like they called each other, and they never taught me any different. My mother did prefer to be called Wenonah - she hated having a boy’s name, and in later years she went by Wenonah, except among family and old friends, but it doesn’t seem natural to me. I hope she’ll forgive me. 

Jim and Don's Honeymoon, June, 1941:

I can’t tell you about my parents’ wedding because it’s in the book, but the book stops there, so their honeymoon is fair game.

The book does mention that they started out to Mexico City with only $25, so I guess that’s as good a place to start as any. That fact just blew my mind when my mother casually mentioned it during one of our telephone conversations during her last years. I guess $25 went a lot farther on those days, but still, going to a foreign country, where you can’t speak the language, where they might not be able to fix your car, where you might get sick and need a doctor – there were so many risks. You’d have to know my parents, but I just can’t imagine them doing that.

First of all, my father was the most careful person I ever knew. He was always prepared. He was the first one ready for church every Sunday morning. He got his car maintained regularly. He was never late for a payment or an appointment. Jim said that after they were married he took out so many insurance policies she had to make him stop because she was afraid they wouldn’t have enough money to buy the things they needed. She teased him for checking their bank statements trying to catch the bank in an error. Actually Jim was the same way. When she took me shopping with her she would go to every store in town that sold a particular item before deciding what to buy. She and Don discussed every major purchase for months before they made a decision. We never lived beyond our means. We were the last family in the neighborhood to get a TV set. We fixed appliances instead of buying new ones. We never bought a car before the last one was paid off. That’s why it’s so hard for me to imagine them starting out on a twenty-five hundred mile trip with only $25. But it’s a fact. They ran out of money too, in Mexico City. My dad had to send a telegram to one of the guys he worked with, Charlie Kopp, asking him to wire another $25 for them to get home. My mother saved the telegram.

Another interesting tidbit my mother shared with me was a warning she got from her brother Haskell before they started on their trip. He told her that because of her dark skin the Mexicans would be offended when she didn’t speak Spanish, thinking she was a “high toned” Mexican refusing to speak her own language. She told me she “poo-poo’d” the idea at the time, but later at a restaurant in Mexico City, she and Don couldn’t get their waiter to come to their table. Finally a Jewish lady sitting next to them figured out their predicament, called to the waiter and ordered for them in Spanish. 

The lack of money, and difficulty communicating didn’t keep Jim and Don from having a good time though. They spent the first night together in Fort Worth, Texas, and the next day they drove on to San Antonio. There they took a Gray Line bus tour of the city for $2.00, visiting the Alamo, the Spanish Governor’s mansion, the San Jose Mission and the Japanese Tea Garden in Breckinridge Park. Jim must have enjoyed showing Don the city where she had lived as a little girl. After San Antonio, they drove south to Laredo. There they crossed the border and stayed in the Mexican town of Nuevo Laredo. They bought a tour book there, for 25¢ - Jim kept it in her scrap book. It had maps, pictures, recommended places to stay, and information about each town and point of interest along the way. From there they followed the Pan American Highway through Monterrey, Ciudad Victoria, and Ciudad Valles. The road then went up into the mountains south to Mexico City. They took some pictures along the way, of the mountains, of the palm trees lining the road, and of each other. Jim had several different outfits, and she wore a broad brimmed bonnet. Her purse was woven out of multicolored yarn and had a draw string at the top, like a small sack. I recognized it when I saw the pictures because I saw it all my life. I asked her if she still had it and she said, “Sure, I keep buttons in it.” Don wore a white shirt and a tie with light colored pants and those old fashioned two toned shoes that were black on the toes and heels and white down the sides, with a straw hat.

Jim said the prettiest town they passed was Jacala. It was nestled among the mountains, and all the houses were white washed. There were vines growing on the walls, and poinsettias blooming in the gardens. The last place they stayed before they arrived in Mexico City was a town called Tamazunchale, which they dubbed “Thomas and Charlie” because that’s what it sounded like to them. Jim said the little town was surrounded by a dense tropical forest and there were colorful wild parrots everywhere. The natives were of small stature and the hotel manager told them they were descendants of the Aztecs. Jim said that they were shy, and that she couldn’t get them to talk to her. That night they kept being awakened by a loud noise that sounded like someone trying to start a car. In the morning she and Don asked the manager what had been going on, and he told them that the noise they heard was made by the parrots.

In Mexico City, Jim and Don visited the historic sites, and the museums, but the highlight of their trip was a visit to Xochimilco, a short way from the city, home of the famous floating gardens, the “Venice of Mexico.” They took a boat tour through the gardens, and were enchanted by the beauty of the flowers. Don bought Jim a bouquet, and she enjoyed the fragrance of the flowers until the oarsman warned her not to sniff them too much because there were little insects in the flowers that sometimes transmitted disease. Jim said she spent the rest of the tour blowing her nose. The guide must have gotten a kick out of that.

It was just about that time that they ran out of money, and decided to head back to Oklahoma City where they would be living while Don continued to work at Peppers refinery, and Jim faced the task of writing 300 thank you notes for their wedding gifts.

PS: I’m saving one more story about my parents’ honeymoon for later. I want to give it a separate post because of its historical interest.

Jim and Don, Xochimilco, 1941

Courting

My mother Wenonah said that she and my father Don didn’t start dating each other exclusively at first, but they would go places together in a group. There were a lot of things to do in Oklahoma City in those days: movies, of course, and dances, picnics, and there was an amusement park out at Spring Lake. Late in the summer the watermelons would get ripe in Rush Springs and watermelon stands would be set up in parks. The farmers would set up a big cooler with ice in the park and you could buy a slice and eat it at one of the tables set up in the park.  

There was a pavilion out at Spring Lake Park, and they had dances there, outside. I don’t even know what’s left of Spring Lake now. When I was little you could swim in the lake, and there was an amusement park. Now swimming in the lake wouldn’t meet the health regulations, and the amusement park is gone too. I think they have a zoo and a golf course there now. Anyway, Wenonah said that nationally famous big bands would come and play there when she and Don were dating: Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Guy Lombardo, and others. 

Wenonah was a member of two organizations, and they both had parties. One was called the India-Okla Club. All of the prominent Indian leaders in the state were members: The Chickasaw and Choctaw governors and several men like my Uncle Homer, who were members of the state legislature. Wenonah was the program chairman, and she arranged for my cousin Lahoma to dance at one of the meetings. 

The other group that Wenonah joined during that time was the Beta Sigma Phi businesswomen’s sorority. I know they had dances because Wenonah saved her dance book from one of their functions. For each dance she would write down whom she danced with. When she danced with Don she would just write “us.” 

In the winter my parents went ice skating on Shepherd’s Pond, as it was called then. The Shepherd family owned a large piece of land  on the edge of town – now it’s in the middle of town, the pond has been filled in, and a shopping center called Shepherd’s Mall has been built there. 

I’ve been writing a book about my Wenonah’s life, and I don’t want to give the plot away, but she lived through a terrible tragedy when she was 15 that turned her against her father, and the experience affected her attitude towards men, or at least towards relationships with men. She told me that it was a big surprise to her family when she told them she intended to marry Don. 

It wasn’t an easy journey though. They went together for three years before Wenonah said yes. My dad was always patient. 

He got jealous one time when Wenonah danced with another man, and she told him that her father was jealous of her mother and that she wouldn't tolerate it, so he gave in. Another time my dad was drinking and Wenonah thought he had had too much, so she told him that her father had been an alcoholic and that she couldn't tolerate drinking. That's something she told me too. "You can have just as much fun sober as you can drunk," she said. Anyway, my dad stopped drinking altogether. Many years later, after they had both retired, they used to have a glass of wine together at bed time, but I can’t remember ever seeing my father drink hard liquor.  

                      

Don Meets Wenonah

Don’s last year at OU was hectic. He was working nights at Peppers, commuting to Norman during the days for his accounting classes, and spending what little time that was left to study.  

Don enjoyed the other guys he worked with at the plant. There was Charley Kopp, Tom Pierce, Bill Beebe and Bud Bickford. They did their best to make a dangerous, boring job bearable. They all teased Beebe about breaking glassware in the lab. It seemed that no matter how careful he was he’d drop a flask or pipette or something, and of course everything he broke came out of his pay check at the end of the month. Finally one day he got so disgusted with himself that he threw a monkey wrench on the floor. He didn’t break anything else that day, so the next day, first thing, he dropped the wrench again. Nothing was broken that day either, so it became a ritual. The first thing Beebe did each day was drop that wrench. He never broke another piece of glassware.  

Bud Bickford was from Oklahoma City and he lived with his parents. Bud’s folks were having a hard time, and Bud helped them as much as he could. After he got acquainted with Don, he invited him to share his room. It was a good deal for both of them. Bud made a little rent money for his parents and Don got a cheap room.   

Don and Bud became good friends. Bud had a degree in chemical engineering from OU, and he was the chemist at Peppers’ lab. He was smart and dissatisfied with his job at Peppers though, as was Don after he had worked there for a while. They spent their spare time trying to think of ways to get away from Peppers and make it big. One of their ideas came when they learned that oil had been found on the island of Aruba. They dreamed of buying a little land there and lying out on the beach while the oil flowed in. It’s just as well that they didn’t though. After the start of WWII Aruba was taken over by the Germans, who were also interested in the oil there. 

Bud had gone to high school in Oklahoma City, and he got together regularly with his classmates. Naturally he took Don along with him. One of the girls in Bud’s high school class was Jeannette Moore, whose mother had been my uncle Haskell’s secretary at the state capital. My mother Wenonah had become friends with Jeannette, so she met Don and Bud during one of their visits with Jeannette.

Wenonah had taken an education class at OU, and some of the OU football players were in it. They were rude and arrogant and definitely made a bad impression on her. It wasn’t long before Don found out what she thought of athletes - my mother was never shy about expressing her opinions, so he didn’t tell her that he had played basketball at OU.  

Peppers had a softball team and Don soon became their star player and coach. Wenonah told me once about going to one of his games. She said that it was as though she were watching a different person. Instead of the mild mannered, shy person she knew, he was aggressive, running around shouting instructions to the other players. He seemed to be making most of the scores too.  

I have a team photo of Don with Peppers’ soft ball team. It has always made me laugh. You can see patches of sweat on some of the other players’ tee shirts, but Don’s shirt is totally saturated.  

 

Peppers' Softball Team, League Champs, 1939

Finding a Job

During Don’s senior year at OU he began to think about getting a job. His major up to that point had been office management, and after visiting a few businesses he discovered that no one was interested in hiring a fresh college graduate as a manager, regardless of his degree, so Don changed his major to accounting. He talked with his counselor and discovered that it would take him another year to get the required credits, and it wouldn’t be easy because the courses would all be upper division.  

Meanwhile Don was losing his roommate. His brother Boyd was graduating from law school and getting married to Eleanor Adderhold, the Kappa girl that Don had coached on how to use her elbows playing basketball. Boyd and Eleanor were going to New Orleans on their honeymoon and had invited Don to go along. It would be a nice break, but then Don would have to find a better job. He couldn’t support himself any longer by delivering laundry. There were no athletic scholarships in the ‘30’s.  

I know. It’s pretty funny that Boyd and Eleanor invited Don to go with them on their honeymoon, but that’s just what they did. When I asked Don why, he said, “ Well, it was a nice trip. I guess they just thought I should have a chance to go along too.”

 

Boyd and Eleanor in 1838

 

The next problem was finding a job. Up to that time playing basketball had taken a lot of Don’s time and energy, and he had also relied a lot on Boyd’s resourcefulness to support the two of them, but now Boyd had a wife to support so Don was on his own.  

It was hard for Don to find a job in Norman because of all the college students needing work. He had gone to Coach McDermott during the second semester of his senior year for help. The coach had cosigned a loan for him for $80. $30 for the second semester, and $50 for summer school. McDermott told Don that he would be retiring as basketball coach after the next season to take the job of athletic director, and then he might be able to offer Don a job on the basketball coaching staff, but at the time being there were no jobs open.  

Don’s father was also trying to get him a job, asking his customers if any of them were hiring. Grandfather’s shop was right off the town square, and every man in town got his hair cut there. They all knew Don too, if not from high school, at least from his years as a star at OU. Finally Grandfather found a man who agreed to talk to Don about a job. His name was Peppers.  

Mr. Peppers lived in Enid, but he owned a gasoline refinery in Oklahoma City. He told Grandfather to send Don over to talk with him. After Don talked with Peppers he was excited. He had been open about wanting to become an accountant, but Peppers told him that was no problem, that he would transfer him to his accounting department when he got his degree. 

 

So Don went to work in the plant. Here’s a picture of Don with Mr. Peppers at a softball game. I have a feeling that Peppers may have had the idea in the back of his mind that Don would be a good addition to the company softball team:

 

Don and C. C. Peppers, 1938

 

For the next year Don worked nights at Peppers' refinery in Oklahoma City, and then drove to Norman to go to school during the days. It was a grueling schedule. The work at Peppers was dangerous too. Don had to inspect and maintain the pipes which carried liquid and gaseous petroleum products. There could be an explosion at any time. He also had climb into the big oil tanks which were sometimes filled with deadly fumes.   

Don didn’t tell me about all the dangers of working at Peppers’ plant, but he did tell me about one terrifying experience he had there. He was working the night shift as usual and it was raining. The rain was coming down hard and it was difficult to see, but over the sound of the wind and thunder he could hear the roar of an engine, so he went out to investigate. It was a big oil tanker bringing in a load of oil to be refined.  

Don could tell that the tanker was going to have trouble because there was a power line that crossed the road about half way up the road to the plant. When the weather was good they would have a man climb up on the trucks to lift the wires up high enough to clear the tanks. It was dangerous work at any time but today on the wet slippery surface of the tanker it seemed like suicide, but the plant manager said they had to unload the oil that night, so one on the workers was chosen to climb up on the tank to lift the wires. Luckily it wasn’t Don.  

As Don watched, the man inched his way along the top of the truck, holding the power line up with a tree branch. Suddenly his feet slipped. He fell on the tanker, and as he did he lost his grip on the branch and the power line fell across his chest. There was a flash of light, and then the man slid off the truck to the ground, dead. Don had nightmares about it for years.

 Don at Peppers Refinery, 1938

 

 

 

Don Finishes Out His College Basketball Career

We kind of take basketball for granted nowadays, but when Don played, the sport was relatively new. Basketball as a college sport started at Kansas University in 1898, where the originator of the game, James Naismith, became the first collegiate basketball coach. Naismith’s successor, Forrest “Phog” Allen, now considered the father of basketball coaches, was still the coach at KU when Don played. Under Allen the Jayhawks won 24 conference championships and three national titles. Since OU and KU were in the same conference, Don played against Kansas every year. At the same time, the coach at Oklahoma A & M, OU’s rival, was Henry “Hank” Iba, also no slouch. He was the first college basketball coach to win two national championships, and also the first coach to win two Olympic championships. Mike Krzyzewski was the second, but he did it with professional players.

Don alternated with Herman “Red” Nelson playing center his junior year. Red Nelson was from Norman Oklahoma, and when I attended college there, I roomed at his mother’s house. Here is a newspaper clipping and picture of Red from 1935.

 

Herman "Red" Nelson, 1935

Don played on the first string his sophomore, junior and senior years, and during that time the team got better, winning the conference championship his senior year, 1936-37. The reason he played guard part time was because he was  fast and good on defense. Don was the team captain his senior year, and he was a key to their championship. By that time he played center full time because of his height, and his ability to jump and to pass. When OU played Kansas State that last year, Don was the hero of the game, scoring the final basket clinch the victory. OU won the conference championship that year. Here’s a newspaper photo of him from 1935.

 

 

Don Gunning, 1935

The next year was Coach McDermott’s last year as OU’s coach. That was the year they changed the rule requiring a jump ball between scores. McDermott was against the rule change, but his fast break strategy continued to work, and earned his last team the nickname, “The Boy Scats.” Don was against the change too, in spite of ingrown toe nails and having to jump against centers three or four inches taller than him. I remember him grousing about it when I was little, saying that they would never be able to take away the advantage of the big man in basketball. He was right about that, but the jump ball was abused too. I read that in one game an especially tall center just tipped the ball to himself to run the clock out.   

Don graduated in 1937 so he wasn't on Coach McDermott's last team, but he did play in the alumna game. I still have Don’s Letter Blanket for basketball. He had one for track too. Wenonah used to put one of them on top of my bed covers on cold nights.

 

Don Makes the Team

Oklahoma University basketball squad, 1937

Don is third from the left in the back row.

Don had to overcome obstacles in his athletic career all along the way. I mentioned before that he broke his arm in high school and didn’t make the football team until his senior year. It seems like about half the notes in his sophomore year book, even the ones from girls, are consoling him because of his failure to make the team. But he did make the team his senior year, and was so good they tried to flunk him so that he could play for another year.  

Don’s college career didn’t start out much better. He went out for basketball instead of football in college, which made sense because he was really tall. 6 feet 4 inches doesn’t seem that tall now, but at the time he was the tallest man to go out for the team. In spite of his height though, he got no encouragement from Coach Hugh McDermott, who told him that he had no potential, and that he might as well stay at home. By his sophomore year he had made the team.

 

The game of basketball was different then. There was no shot clock in those days, so there was more passing, and players waited to shoot until they thought they had a sure thing. No one dunked the ball, and there were no extra points for shooting longer shots. Don said that a player would have been taken out of the game for attempting what’s now a three pointer. Scores were lower then. A winning score was often less than 50 points. 

Even without dunking, height was still important in the early days of basketball. Not only did it matter in shooting and guarding, but there was a jump ball after each point. Since Don played center it was up to him to get the ball for his team on the "tip." Even though Don was the tallest man on OU’s team, most of the centers at other schools were taller than him. He often played against men who were six feet seven or eight. It was also up to Don to jump for rebounds. He said that it took several years after he stopped playing basketball for his feet to heal, because his opponents would step on his toes to keep him from jumping.  

Basketball doesn't have the reputation for being as rough a sport as football does, but it can be rough, and it was in Don's day as well. He told me about a "hot shot" freshman rookie who charged up toward the basket during one of his first practices. Don taught him a lesson by raising his arm to block him. The boy was knocked off his feet by the collision and lost a tooth as well. Don said that another time they were playing at OSU and one of his team mates was hit as he jumped up for a rebound. He was knocked into the bleachers by the blow and as his body fell between the seats his scrotum was torn on a nail. 

Don's sophomore year, his first year on the team, was a tough year for him. OU's team was improving. That year they beat their arch rival, Oklahoma A and M, now known as Oklahoma State University. Don said the rivalry between the two Oklahoma schools was so bitter that when OU played at A & M, lettermen would stand along the sidelines of the basketball court, and if one of the OU players stepped out of bounds he would have to start swinging his fists to fight his way back onto the court. Luckily the game against A & M was at OU his first year. 

After the A & M game, the Sooners' winning streak continued in two back to back games against Missouri. The games were on Friday and Saturday night. Don fell on his right arm during the second Missouri game, and it was hurting and swollen the next Tuesday when the team played the first game of a double header against Kansas University in Lawrence, Kansas. Don didn't know it yet, but his arm had been broken by the fall. He played the first game anyway. The afternoon before the second game he wrote a letter home to his parents. It was Jan 16, 1935:  

Hotel Eldridge

Lawrence, Kansas                                                     Wednesday

Dear Folks

          Well we played K U last night and they beat us 50 to 23. That is the worst O U has been beaten in a long time. They sure have a good team but they are pretty old and a lot bigger than we are. My man weighs 205# and is about 23 years old. Our team didn’t play near as good as usual. Browning only made one bucket. We play them again tonight and we’ll be in Norman at 8:30 in the morning.

          I fell on my right arm pretty hard in the Missouri game and it is swelled at the elbow about twice its normal size and it sure is sore and stiff. I got to play all but the last two minutes of the game last night but my arm was so sore I couldn’t do much. I made 1 basket, 1 personal foul, and 1 free shot, and I got the tip half the time. I couldn’t straighten my arm clear out or I would have got it all the time. I don=t know whether I’ll get to play any tonight or not, Browning says I can’t, but I think McDermott will let me play some. (“Browning” was Bud Browning, who was a year older than Don and was the star of the team that year. He was also from Enid High, so he and Don were friends. Hugh McDermott, the coach, didn’t let Don play in the next game. He sent him to the doctor as soon as they got back to Norman, and the doctor told Don that he had a broken arm.)

          Browning and I got a telegram from Miller, McCoy, Miss Morrow, and Miss Nellie Moore congratulating us on our Missouri games. They are all high school teachers. I guess that=s all now. I’ll let you know if my elbow gets any worse.

Love Don 

The broken arm put an end to Don’s basketball season, and after the cast was removed he couldn’t straighten out his arm. My uncle Jay said that Don carried a bucket of sand around  that winter to force his arm to straighten out. By springtime he was feeling well enough go out for track, and his arm was strong enough that he placed third in the javelin throw at the Big Six track meet in May.

 

 

My Proudest Moment

My dad didn’t talk to me much about his sports career, and he never encouraged me to pursue any sport myself. It’s not that he wasn’t supportive. He would play catch with me, both with a baseball and a football. I already mentioned how amazed I was that he could throw a football, even without a thumb on his right hand. He built me a basketball goal on the garage and would play with me and show me how to shoot. As I got older and got interested in bowling and tennis, he’d go out and play those sports with me. I enjoyed watching him play. He moved with graceful, rapid movements, and could change directions quickly so you couldn’t anticipate which way he was turning, especially in basketball. 

Don never “exercised” though. He didn't walk or jog, lift weights or do sit ups. He would play golf or bowl with the people he worked with, and was always able to stay competitive with them, and with me, even as he got older, and he didn’t boast or seek any special status because of his accomplishments in sports. It didn’t seem important to him. It was as though it was something he had done in his youth, but was no longer relevant.   

Don did volunteer to “coach” my little league baseball team, halfheartedly. He would stand on the sidelines with the other coaches, and while the others would shout instructions to their sons, and push to get them in the starting lineup, Don just calmly watched the game. It’s not that I was all that competitive in sports myself. I realized that I wasn’t as strong, as coordinated, or as fast as most of my classmates, but I was intensely proud of my dad’s achievements, and I thought he should get more respect.  

There was one time that I got to gloat a little over Don’s prowess though. It was at a company picnic. I must have been 9 or 10 years old. He and Jim and I had eaten our picnic lunch and we were walking around the area, visiting with Don’s associates. The organizers of the picnic had set up some activities to entertain us, and I remember one that was simply a sledge hammer. Men would grip the sledge hammer at the end of the long handle, and try to raise the mallet end without lifting their hand from the ground. We stood there watching men try and fail, one after another. No one could do it. I begged Don to try, and finally he reached down and easily lifted the mallet.  

As we continued to walk around the park, we came upon some men playing softball. They were playing workup. That’s where you start with a group of batters, and a group of fielders. When one of the batters is put out, one of the fielders comes in to bat, and the other fielders work their way up through the positions until they get to bat too. Anyway we watched for a while, and I begged Don to play. I wanted to see him in action.   

Don said he wasn’t interested. I continued to beg though, and after a while I created enough commotion to get the attention of the men who were playing. They invited Don to play, but he turned them down, saying that he didn’t want to leave his family alone while he played softball. After that they conferred with each other, and then invited Don to bat without having to work his way up from the field, so he reluctantly agreed.  

I remember the experience as though it were yesterday. Jim and I were standing behind home plate as the pitcher pitched the ball to Don. Don swung on the first pitch. “Strike one!” The pitcher threw the ball again. “Strike two!” But the next time the pitcher threw the ball, Don didn’t swing. I think he had finally gotten serious. “Ball one.” Said the referee. Then the pitcher threw the ball right down the middle. Don swung the third time and connected.

The ball soared straight over the pitcher’s head, over the second baseman, over the center fielder, and landed in the bushes behind the playing field.  

Don didn’t run around the bases. He just calmly put down the bat, and walked back to join us.   

 

Don, the Bully

Don worked hard in his classes at OU, but he also worked hard to excel in sports. He not only went out for basketball, but also track. He ran the mile, the mile relay and he threw the javelin.  

Don was exceptionally strong in his arms. He had boxed since grade school, and he worked on improving his arm strength. He told me once that he used to do 300 push ups every night. When I was little I asked him why he didn’t have big muscles like weight lifters, and he told me that they weren’t a strong as they looked. He said that he had beat one of the weight lifters at OU in arm wrestling. 

Apparently Don didn’t quit fighting at OU, and from what I can gather he was short tempered and used to push people around. I didn’t find that out from him. It was Jim who told me that Don's brother Boyd had pulled him aside once or twice to tell him that he couldn’t keep bullying people and succeed as an adult.  

Don still spent his summers in Fay while he was in college, and he was something of a hero there, especially after he made the basketball team. When I went to stay with my cousin Bud in Fay, his dad, Uncle Check, told me that Don worked at a dairy one summer, and that he could unload ten gallon milk containers out of a truck without taking down the tailgate. I guess working on the farm helped Don stay in condition. He told me once that the hardest work he had ever done was to dig a well by hand.  

 

Don at Aunt Laura's Dairy in Canton, Oklahoma

(Cousin Marvin Gunning on L, Laura on R, Don next to Laura)

 

One summer Don had a job surveying for the county, and he told me a funny story about an old farmer he met that summer. What Don was supposed to do was to measure the dimensions of each farmer’s fields. He had a chain of a certain length, and he was supposed to walk along the fence line and count the number of chain lengths on the sides of each field.  

Don said as he walked up to one farmer’s house, he saw the farmer sitting out on his porch in the sun. The man told Don that the sun was good for his arthritis. He said that his boys worked his farm now, because he hadn’t been able to work for several years because of the arthritis. Don asked if any of his boys were around, that he was going to need someone at the other end of his chain. The old farmer said his boys weren’t there, but he’d try to help. 

Don said that the old farmer walked slow, but they eventually walked around every field, and the farmer kept going, even though the chain was heavy and sometimes Don was almost dragging him along. Don said he was feeling guilty about putting the old farmer through such a hard day’s work when they finally got back to the house, but to his surprise the farmer had a smile on his face. He thanked Don for putting him through the work out, and said that he hadn’t felt better in years.  

I don’t think Don continued his boxing matches after he went to college, but he didn’t lose his self-confidence. Uncle Check told me another incident that happened at a rodeo they went to together. Check said they were sitting in the first row, and that one of the cowboys tossed a bucket of water on the ground in front of them, splashing mud up on their pants. He said that Don said something to the cowboy about what he could do with his water, and the cowboy said, “Why don’t you make me?” At that point Don stood up to his full 6 ft, 4 inches, and started to climb over the fence. The cowboy retreated.  

I used to try to imagine what Don was like in school. The stories I heard of him as a young man portrayed him as cocky and belligerent, a person totally different from my father. I never once heard Don raise his voice, let alone lose his temper. He was always calm, gentle, and understanding. He never seemed to assert himself, but people respected his opinions. He was well liked by everyone who knew him. He was a supervisor in his job, and he was elected to positions of leadership elsewhere. He was on the vestry at church, and he was president of the Petroleum Accountants’ Association of Oklahoma.  

Don did tell me one story about why he had changed his personality. He said there was a boy at OU, a member of the track team, who admired Don for his prowess in sports, but Don considered him a pest, so he bullied him and tried to run him off. He said that in spite of Don's attitude though, the boy kept trying to make friend with him, so he gradually decided that he was wrong. He told me, “I just decided I didn’t want to be that kind of person anymore,” and he and the young man became friends.  

This story is another example to me of Don’s ability to change. I think that was the most remarkable thing about my father. A lot of people try to change or improve their  personalities, but very few are able to accomplish it. Don did, not just once, but over and over again.