“HAPPY”
JOHN OLIVER.
The following article is from the Winfield
Courier of January 16, 1943.
“Happy” John Oliver, 78 year old Negro of
Arkansas City, who personally keeps happy 750 of Uncle Sam’s lads in uniform,
lived “the happiest day of my life” Wednesday when he spent the afternoon at
Strother army air field, new basic flying school located midway between
Arkansas City and Winfield.
It was Oliver’s first visit to any army
camp since the days of 1898, when he saw action in the Spanish-American War.
Last year the venerable “Happy” mailed
out to the boys in the service all over the world over 700 cakes, and many
other gifts—cookies, candy, cigarettes, stationery—and he wrote them thousands
of cards and letters to do his part in keeping up their morale.
It’s been pretty tough going sometimes,
and one meal a day is about all he can afford, because “Happy’s” little shoe
shine parlor isn’t any gold mine. But to the many who wonder how he carries on,
he simply answers, “It’s a secret between God and me.”
Strother field impressed “Happy” no end
and he watched the silver trainers zoom in for landings with a gleam in his
eye.
“I’m too young to fly, yet,” chuckled the
old Negro, who was born Feb. 29, 1864, a leap year, and thus has had only 18
birthdays. “When I get to be 20, I’ll go up.”
“Happy” visited every spot on the
field—the theater, the gym, the living quarters, the mess hall, and the chapel
which he described with bowed head as “the most beautiful place on the field..”
The cake idea isn’t a new one for “Happy,”
who is the original old black chef on the Cream of Wheat package. He began his
“hobby” in the last war, and merely picked up in 1942 where he left off. He
sent out two cakes a day every day of last year and during the recent Christmas
holidays, he bought and mailed dozens of fruit cakes, packed in marshmallows
and pop corn.
Most of “his” boys are from Arkansas
City, but there are 48 whom he doesn’t even know. The Arkansas City soldiers
sent him names of their buddies who didn’t get any mail and he now drops them a
card every day.
“I’m not doing half what these boys are
doing for us,” says old “Happy.” “They’re giving their lives so we can lie down
at night and sleep.”
“Happy” John Oliver reluctantly departed
from Strother field late in the afternoon, going only because he had “fo’teen
boys to take care of before I go to bed.” So back to his little shine shop he
went, unwilling to take “a hundred dollars fo’ this day.”
It’s open house at the Silver Dime shine
parlor anytime for “Happy’s” boys in uniform. Big, two-pound G. I. shoes are
his specialty.