Samuel Curtis Dickey, Jr.

Samuel Curtis Dickey, Jr. September 26, 1918 - February 27, 2011 Samuel Curtis Dickey, Jr. (Sam), a resident of Redlands since 1943, was born in Hill City, South Dakota in 1918. At the age of five years, his parents moved with the children to Gillette, Wyoming. In his early years, and while attending Camel County High School in Gillette, Sam worked for his father at a general merchandise store. He and his younger siblings-Doris, Lois, and Don- grew up roaming the Black Hills. Sam commented that their rural neighborhood "was a fun kind of old mining ghost town," being near the place that his immigrant grandparents had selected when they came to the US from Norway in the 1860's. His childhood home had no electricity or inside plumbing, and the family had to carry water, and use kerosene and candles for light until young Sam was about ten years. He recalls returning to his grandmother s home in Galina, South Dakota every summer to visit and to relieve his mother s hay fever attacks. Sam also fondly remembers going gold-mining with a pan up near Ruby Gulch. He became well-acquainted with an older miner, who took Sam and a hammer, drill, and blasts, to help the young boy arrive at the best gold. Sam enjoyed a gift from his father of a single shot 22 rifle, which he used to hunt squirrels and packrats. In high school. Sam played sports, especially excelled at football and basketball. After graduation, Sam attended Black Hills Teachers College, then returned to Gillette to work in a lumber yard. It was there he met the of his life, Ruth, who was teaching in his hometown. Ruth taught in Gillette for about a year, then moved west to join her mother in Long Beach, California. Sam followed, and finally secured a job at Lockheed Aircraft business in Burbank, where he was hired as a template maker. Soon, the industrious Sam was transferred to an experimental unit and he worked on projects the company was developing Among these experiments was the 3-tailed plane, which Sam really enjoyed working on because it was so new and unusual! While in Long Beach, Sam and Ruth were married at the Hilton Hotel on October 4, 1940. They traveled across the water to Catalina Island for their honeymoon, and were married for nearly 59 years until Ruth s death in May 1999. Sam appreciated their good marriage and referred to Ruth as "a jewel." They gave birth to two sons, Jim and Don who were both born at Redlands Community Hospital, and much later, also enjoyed their four grandchildren, Corey and Bailey, Joshua and Alexander, and four great-grandchildren. After working for 3 years at Lockheed, Sam enlisted in the US Navy, where he began his service in electronics and soon switched to being a storekeeper who tracked and ordered supplies. He served stateside, in Chicago, IL; Monterey, CA; Samson, NY; Jacksonville, FL; and eventually in San Diego, CA. Just before deployment overseas, the man signing the deployment papers asked Sam directly if he really wanted to go overseas, and Sam quickly responded in the negative, so he was only sent a few miles north to the base at Kearney Mesa! Sam recalls that it was while he and Ruth were in San Diego that they would travel to Redlands on weekends to visit Sam s sister who taught at the University of Redlands in the theater department. After just a few visits, the young couple decided that Redlands would be their home. In Redlands, Sam went to work loading trucks for Creston Knudsen in the citrus business and eventually became office manager. His boss was a very religious man, who spent a lot of time around the Congregational Church, and who introduced the Dickeys to church life. Sam worked for Creston for about two years, and then enrolled in the geology department at the University of Redlands, and following the lead of both Ruth and her sister who were teachers, Sam meandered into elementary education. Public education would become his life s beloved career! After securing a temporary teaching certificate, Sam taught for three years, at Central School District in Cucamonga, followed by one year of teaching at Highland and five years in Colton, where he was also a teaching principal. He then transferred to Bloomington for two years as business manager for the district office. However, on his first day on the job, the district needed a bus driver, so eager Sam became a school bus driver! Later, Sam was hired to work as a district liaison with a school district in Orange, and from there, was hired by San Bernardino County Superintendent Roy C. Hill to serve as a consultant to school districts throughout the large county. As Sam once commented, "It was a peach of a job where I spent 29 years in the county office and loved every bit of it!" Sam s expertise was in the finance area, and he traveled countless miles to help struggling districts, to work with the California State Department of Education, to write manuals on finance, and to assist elementary, secondary, and even community colleges throughout the county. "It was just a fun job!" said Dickey, "I don t think anyone could have written any better job for me!" Meanwhile, Ruth continued teaching until her retirement in 1970, helping hundreds of elementary children in both Redlands and Yucaipa. After retirement, she did a bit of substitute teaching. When their boys were young, Sam and Ruth enjoyed many driving trips around the Western United States. In retirement, the couple ventured back to Wyoming to visit Sam s parents and New England to visit their older son and family; they took longer trips to Spain, Portugal, Morocco; and enjoyed a trip across the ocean and through the Panama Canal on an ocean liner. They were among the earliest groups of Americans allowed into Czechoslovakia for a short tour, and also took trips to Hawaii and later to Canada, where they basked in the beauty of Lake Louise, Banff, and Jasper National Park. The couple also took a trip to the Carribean, with different stops along the way. One of their final trips together was to New York City for the national convention of the Elks Lodge. Continuing the joy of travel, Sam and his son, Don and grandson Corey recently traveled to South Dakota, where they visited people Sam had known in his childhood, and saw a 1-room schoolhouse (now being restored as a museum) still standing behind the location of Dickey s former homestead. In addition to his impressive employment and extended travels, Sam Dickey gave himself in a variety of charitable volunteer work, including statewide education committee work, the Redlands Congregational Church (as Sunday School Superintendent and Moderator), the Redlands Elks Lodge (Exalted Ruler, District Deputy of the Southeast District, and later volunteer secretary), the Redlands United Church of Christ ( Trustee, Usher, and longtime treasurer for the annual Art, For Heaven Sake), and the Redlands Symphony Orchestra ( board member and Controller). When reviewing his long and industrious life, Sam commented with a twinkle in his eye, " I didn t accomplish much! But I know I enjoyed it all!"