Deedie Ernest Gilreath, Service Men's Center laundryman sets sheet-returning record

Creator

Preview

Identifier

20029209

Description

A portrait of Laundryman Deedie Ernest Gilreath who holds some sort of record for the speed with which he returns soiled sheets and towels to his customers snowy white. The Service Men's Center is on Gilreath's route for the Natatorium Laundry and he estimates that between 1,500 and 1,600 each of sheets, pillow, cases and towels are used by servicemen at the center over one weekend. Since this exhausts the center's supply of linens, many of those items must be laundered and returned to the center on Monday. This seemingly impossible task during the wartime manpower shortage is accomplished by Gilreath who always has all of the laundry back by Thursday and starts returning the lean linens on the Monday following the week end. An ex-serviceman himself, Gilreath received a medical discharge from the Navy last December after a year at San Diego, the laundryman says he knows just how much clean sheets and towels mean to a serviceman. Gilreath said that he used to chase all over the West Coast trying to find a place to sleep when he was on weekend liberty from the naval base. He also works as a volunteer at the center from 11 p.m. Saturday until 5 a.m. Sunday, where he runs the elevator, makes up beds for servicemen and serves as general handy man. Published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram morning edition, August 9, 1945.

Archival Date

1945-08-07

Collection Name

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection

Collection Number

AR406-6-359

Original Format

Negatives, Black & White

File Format

JPG

Rights

Rights held by The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections. Any use of content downloaded or printed from this page is limited to non-commercial personal or educational use, including fair use as directed by U.S. copyright laws. For more information or for reproduction requests, please contact UTA Special Collections by emailing spcoref@uta.edu.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Subjects

Gilreath, Deedie Ernest; Natatorium Laundry; Service Men's Center; Military discharges; United States. Navy; Community service; Laundry; Portrait photographs