MOORE’S LIVING HISTORY

 

102-year-old Lonnie DaVoult and Moore’s first fire chief take a look back through time.

 

We read about the period of American history known as the Great Depression and the events that took place during that time, like the Dust Bowl, as a distant recounting. In some ways, we might be able to imagine what it was like. 

 

But for 102-year-old Lonnie DaVoult, it was his life.

 

“We was IN that big depression,” said DaVoult. “We had a big, beautiful crop just a mile from where I live now, and on July 4^th of that year, the hot wind and the sand blew in, the creek and well went dry, and we lost it.”

 

DaVoult, who was born in October 1923, has vivid memories of how his family, like so many others during that time, worked hard just to survive.

 

“We had a well with a rope that my sister and I blistered our hands pulling water up from,” said DaVoult. “It got so bad that we had to leave the farm. My dad was able to get a job with Sinclair in 1935. That’s something I give God all the credit for.”

The DaVoults moved to Moore in 1935, and Lonnie began his education in what is now known as the “Old School Building.”

 

“I started school in fourth grade, and I graduated in 1942,” said DaVoult. “We rented a house right off of the railroad tracks on 12^th Street, and I was able to walk to school.”

Those early memories of growing up in Moore include simple pleasures like playing all of the popular childhood games outside the building.

 

“Red Rover, hopscotch, and marbles,” said DaVoult. “I remember climbing the stairs inside that building, and one of my teachers, who had a great impact on me. I believe her name was Miss Casey, and she later taught my daughter.”

 

He also has vivid memories of the buildings surrounding the Old School, including the place where he and his sister ate lunch each day.

 

“There was this hamburger joint that my dad made a deal with the owner,” said DaVoult. “I think it was called ‘Bean’s Hamburgers.’ My dad made an agreement with him to feed my sister and me for lunch, and he would pay for it later. It cost ten cents for a Coke and a hamburger.”

 

He also has some fond memories of the south end of the Old School Building.

 

“I can remember going up the stairs on that end of the building to the library and kind of flirting with the girls,” said DaVoult. “That’s where I first ran two young ladies, one of whom would become my wife.”

 

As he grew into a teenager, playing football and working with wood were two things he remembers enjoying during his high school years. When he graduated from Moore High School in 1942, the first thing on his agenda was to go to work. He landed a job with Phillips Petroleum in May of that year. 

 

Then, in December, Uncle Sam came knocking.

 

“I got a letter from the government saying, ‘Great things for you, your friends, and your neighbors. You have been selected to serve your country,” said DaVoult. “So, I went to fight in World War II in March of 1943. 

 

DaVoult says that after basic training in Texas, Louisiana, and California, he and his unit were loaded onto a train and headed east to Boston.

 

“We boarded a ship in Boston and went over to England,” said DaVoult. “Then it was across the water to France and the heart of combat. We ended up going through France, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. Then we came back home for 30 days before they sent us to the Philippines.”

In Manila, DaVoult says his unit understood that they were preparing for an invasion of Japan. It was expected to be a brutal and deadly campaign. Then came the news that the war was over.

 

“We were just getting ready to go when they dropped the bombs,” said DaVoult. “I’m pretty sure that if they hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here today.”

DaVoult ended up with a list of medals for his heroic service, including a Purple Heart after being wounded in Germany. The soldiers made their way home by ship and then by train to Kansas City. From there, he boarded a train back to Oklahoma.

 

“My dad had just started a business in Blanchard and my wife’s family had a farm three miles to the east of Moore,” said DaVoult. “My dad wanted me to work with him in a plumbing and electric business, but during the first week they sent me crawling up under a house to get something out, and I got hung up under there. It scared me worse that battle on the front in the war.”

DaVoult came out from under the house and told his dad that, while he was grateful for the job, he would return to work for Phillips Petroleum from 1945 to 1950.

 

It was at this point that DaVoult says God stepped into the story. 

“I got saved, born again, and everything on January 15^th of that year,” said DaVoult. “I didn’t know anything about the Bible. Didn’t even know it had two parts, the Old and New Testaments. I just got it out and started reading.”

 

By the time mid-summer hit, DaVoult said he felt a clear call from God.

 

“John’s Gospel. Jesus said, ‘You didn’t choose Me. I chose you,’” said DaVoult. “I called you, ordered all this, and I’m sending you out. That just hit me straight, and I’ve been in full-time Christian work since.” 

 

DaVoult says in those early years of ministry, he was sent all over Oklahoma to preach in small churches that didn’t have a preacher. One of his mentors told him to go to school and become the best preacher he could be. He started at Oklahoma Baptist College in Shawnee before transferring to a Free Will Baptist college in Nashville for the final part of his college education.

 

Over the years, DaVoult has been involved in starting churches and was part of the founding of what is now Randall’s University. He says none of the credit for anything goes to him.

 

“God has led me every step of the way,” said DaVoult. “I did not ask to go to the Army. I did not ask to go to college. I was told and I went. I honestly didn’t plan anything. I just let God lead me and He has faithfully directed me. He still does.”

 

 

James Clark remembers moving to a farm in Moore as a child in 1947.

 

“There were less than 500 people here at the time,” said Clark. “We lived out by what’s now 19^th and Western and farmed 160 acres on the southwest corner there.”

 

Clark says his parents, like so many during that period of time, didn’t own the land they worked. 

“They were sharecroppers,” said Clark. “But my dad was always a great hand, always trying to better himself. One of the last things he did was promise to build a fence around the old Smith Cemetery that was caddy corner to that intersection where we lived.”

 

Tragically, his father had a stroke and passed away before he had a chance to build that fence. Clark, who was 13 years old at the time, says he and his older brothers kept his dad’s promise.

 

“The old boy that owned the place told me about his agreement with my dad,” said Clark. “So, my older brothers came home on the weekends, and we put up a fence around that 160 acres.”

 

Clark went through all twelve grades of his education at the Old School Building and remembers when the lower school was downstairs and the high school was upstairs. He worked various jobs after school during those years.

“I had developed a trade for being a mechanic and so, I went to work for the garage over where John Ireland is now for $30 a week,” said Clark.

 

It was during this time that he was hanging out with friends who are volunteer firefighters. Clark says that he started helping out in that area more and more as time went by.

 

“I went to work for Bob Baldwin up next to the fire station at that time,” said Clark. “He was also a volunteer and one day he told me, ‘You’re making as many runs as any of my firemen. You need to just go sign up.’”

 

As he gained experience, Clark displayed some leadership skills that led to a change in roles.

“The fire chief went on vacation one year, and before he left, he told me I needed to be chief while he was gone,” said Clark. “I didn’t know much about anything except how to do the work, by the had people help and show me what to. So, he went on two weeks vacation and when he came back, he said, ‘I heard you all got by real good without me!’”

 

Clark says the chief then called a meeting of the rest of the volunteers and recommended that Clark be named volunteer fire chief. Later, Don Dodge, Moore’s city manager at the time, went looking for a paid fire chief. That led to a conversation between Dodge and Marvin Anderson, Moore’s postmaster.

 

“Marvin told him that since I was already doing the job for nothing, they ought to hire me,” said Clark. “So, we went out to the old 77 Café where Dodge asked me if I’d be interested in the job.”

 

Just like that, Clark became the city’s first paid fire chief. 

 

“We had just a single bay and three fire trucks,” said Clark. “We would have to drain the water out of the oldest truck and store it in the barn during the winter to keep it from freezing.”

 

As the years passed and Clark worked to upgrade the city’s meager firefighting resources, he remembers getting a lot of support from the community.

 

“The people of Moore were always good to me,” said Clark. “If I went to them and laid out a plan for something, nine times out of ten, they’d go along with it and vote for a bond issue or whatever we needed.”

 

Eventually the residents voted to add a second floor to the station so that firefighters could have a living quarters and add on another bay for the trucks. The city ran out of money building that second bay, so Clark and the firefighters finished out the project.

 

“We painted, we textured, we laid tile on the floor, and we even put the pole in there,” said Clark. “Then I went to the city council and said, ‘We need some paid firemen.’”

 

All of this took place during the 60s, as Moore began to boom from a small farming community to a more robust Oklahoma City suburb.

 

“I remember talking to city leadership and telling them, ‘You can’t build your city and have nobody to put out the fires, because they are going to happen,’” said Clark, “Sometimes it was really stressful trying to keep up with everything.”

 

Clark continued to lead the fire department until he retired in 1981. He says he takes a lot of pride in helping the fire department keep up with the city’s growth.