Earl Dean Matthews of Ozark passed away May 28, 2018. He was 88.
Mr. Matthews was born in Dale County on a Saturday the 6th of July 1929
He began his first year of school in a two-room school house (Dean School
House), located about two hundred yards from their home. The following
year Dale County consolidated the schools and began busing children to
Newton or Ozark. In 1942 the Department of The Army decided to build Camp
Rucker. There were hundreds of families that had to relocate and as a result
the Matthews family settled in Newton near the high school. Mr. Matthews
continued school until the end of the first semester of 1946. At this time
he began road construction work, driving a dump truck. He continued
this type of work for about two years. America was becoming more
involved in the Korean War in 1948 and Mr. Matthews was subject for the
draft, so he decided to join the Navy and did so on the seventh of August,
1948. After three months of boot camp in San Diego, California, a
fifteen-day leave was granted to come home and then he was reassigned for
a twenty-four month tour of duty in Oahu, Hawaii. After this tour he had
another leave to come home and then reassignment. This assignment
was getting on a ship in Astoria, Oregon and heading for Sasebo, Japan
and then to the Korean waters. This tour lasted about thirteen months;
he was discharged the first of August 1952.
In November of 1952, he began a two-year course in Tractor and Diesel Mechanics
at the trade school in Napier Field, Alabama. The eighteenth day
of November 1954 he hired on with Spartan Aircraft Maintenance Contractor
at Fort Rucker. He worked with other contractors, Aeronca, Hayes,
Page, Sikoriski, Northrop and DynCorp until his retirement the first of
June, 1991.
In 1986, Mr. Matthews and his wife Doris began making woodcrafts in their wood shop and displaying them in several different cities across the state such as the Claybank Jamboree in Ozark.
Preceeded in death by:
. . . .Parents; Jesse Ewell and Sallie Mae Dean Matthews
. . . .Wife; Doris Amanda Peters Matthews
. . . .Brother; Comer Matthews
. . . .Three (3) Sisters; Grace Matthews Cobb, Irene Matthews Mallory and Gladys Matthews Stanford
Survived by;
. . . . Daughter; Amanda Matthews of Panama City, FL
Burial in Woodlawn Memorial Gardens
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