Is there anyone in Summerton more famous than John Canty?
On the wall in the office of his home are pictures of a few former employers, such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
Among the many photos with handwritten messages is this one, captured in green ink: “To John, Love & Peace.” It is signed by Sammy Davis Jr. There’s an iconic image of Michael Jackson with Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
“Oh,” Canty said of the late pop superstar. “He was nice.”
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Born in 1925 in Silver to James and Susan Martin Canty, he was the youngest of seven children – three boys and four girls. There were three stores, he recalls, and “quite a bit going on.” His father farmed corn and cotton. He remembers riding the train for the first time as 9-year-old boy, taking a trip from Pinewood to Marion.
“Oh, it was real nice,” he said, smiling at the memory of seeing a silent movie in Marion – another first. “That was a great experience.”
When he graduated from Scott’s Branch High School in 1942, he headed to Washington, D.C., with his parent’s blessing, looking for work. He stayed with his older brother Willie, who had been there a few years. Canty got work in construction, laboring on what would eventually become Andrews Air Force Base. Driving a dump truck earned him “87 and a half cents an hour,” he said, but the “labor wasn’t bad.”
Segregation wasn’t new to him. The white men worked as foremen and in management. The black men labored. Canty remembers, but doesn’t seem to dwell on those aspects of the past. Being away from South Carolina for the first time was thrilling. He was in the nation’s capital.
“Oh, it was amazing. Union Station and great big buildings and everything was just lit up so bright,” he said. When his construction job ended, he moved to Michigan to build hangars. Shortly thereafter, he was drafted into the Army. He came back to Clarendon County before shipping out to Fort Jackson and then Fort Bragg, N.C. Canty jokes that he is “only 89,” but can recall the many bases where he received his demolition and ordnance training: Greensboro, N.C.; Birmingham, Ala.; Tampa, Fla.; then on to Seattle, Wash.
War loomed across the ocean.
I was really young,” he said. “I didn’t know how I would fare being out with men. Many were 21 or 22 (years old). But in the first few weeks, I made some friends and got over it.”
PACIFIC THEATER
Canty’s next stop was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese sneak attack lingered still, but Canty and others knew what they were facing. They embraced the opportunity to cut loose; like a lot of young men fearing the reality of war and death, they lived it up while they could.
“The guys said overseas was so bad and here we were in town. There was nothing to do but go to town and fool around. We had a ball there,” he said.
Canty, an engineer, headed to Saipan, which was “rough,” but clearing mines and sleeping in the jungle prepared him for his next assignment in Okinawa. “Okinawa was rough. They were still bombing and shelling. It was worse than Saipan. I was just wondering what’s going to happen to us,” he said.
Camouflaged enemy snipers were a constant concern, he remembers.
“The Marine Corps had cleared a lot of places but there were still a lot of snipers. You had to be on your P’s and Q’s,” he said. “Every now and then someone would get picked off.”
Tasked with building airstrips and infrastructure, he was asked one day if he wanted to be in charge of mail. He said yes.
“I stayed there until the end. They dropped the atomic bombs,” and the war was over. “They knew they couldn’t buck that atomic bomb.”
“I SURE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE THAT GIRL.”
Once he was back in Washington, D.C., it wasn’t long before his father asked for help on the farm. In 1947, he once again headed back to Clarendon County. One day he met his future wife, Mary Tindal, who was working for her cousin Alva Rivers at The Silver Moon Cafe in Sumter.
He was hit hard.
“I thought, I sure would like to have that girl,” he said, chuckling. They got married and he went back to D.C. to find a job and a place to stay. About three weeks later he returned. He found work in construction, driving trucks, and then moved on to cleaning and repairing trains. He also drove taxicabs part-time, working hard to earn a living in a country still separated by race.
“You feel like you’re less than a citizen,” he said. “But you got to live.”
In the late 1950s, he was laid off from Washington Terminal Company. He got on with Eastern Airlines, cleaning and stocking airplanes. After a few months, he applied for a government job while his wife Mary worked in retail and as a technician at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Springs, Md.
NASA, THE WHITE HOUSE
Canty landed a job as a clerk at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in White Oak, Md. About a year later he became employed – also as a clerk – at a brand new agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. After two supervisors at NASA left for jobs at the White House, he followed suit, but was skeptical at first, asking if he could work temporarily and go back to NASA if he wanted.
“I worked what I thought was a short detail and winded up spending 18 years,” he said, laughing.
As the mail router at the White House in 1967, he made a little more than $5,000 a year. So what was President Lyndon Johnson like?
“He was OK. When you first meet somebody you just meet them and that’s all,” he said. Johnson threw a party on the lawn for all the staffers. Ever the Texan, LBJ brought in a chef from the Lone Star state to barbecue ribs. There were several bands playing on different spots around the White House. He strolled around with his wife, who was eating a bag of potato chips.
President Johnson exchanged pleasantries and then reached into the bag for a few chips.
“She said she was not going to wash her hands,” he recalled, laughing at how he was star struck. His duties didn’t exactly have him rubbing shoulders with the commander-in-chief, but he does remember LBJ as being responsible for pushing the 1964 Civil Rights Act through Congress.
“It sounded good but really nothing had changed too much,” he said.
When Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, he gained more responsibility with seniority. Working in personnel, he helmed the information center, which entailed getting FBI background reports assembled for prospective hires, among other duties.
“Nixon came in and dumped 40 people on me and I had to try to get them something to do,” he said. “They didn’t know where the supply room was or where the cafeteria was.”
Every time a new president came in, in fact, he saw the first few months as trying and stressful until everyone learned their roles. When the Watergate scandal took down our nation’s 37th president, the mood around the White House was decidedly somber.
“Oh, it was terrible,” Canty said. “Nixon wasn’t a bad guy. He brought in a lot of young people right out of law school and they were telling him things that weren’t true like he was above the law.”
Everybody, he said, hated to see Nixon go down.
“I don’t really think it was his fault. He was a good president. He seemed to be a pretty nice guy. All those guys are nice talking to you but you don’t know what’s going on otherwise,” he said.
When Gerald Ford took over, there wasn’t too much changeover, personnel-wise, and most of the staffers stayed on. When Ford pardoned Nixon, some angst around the White House was alleviated.
“I really felt sorry for him,” he said. Ford’s brief tenure wasn’t terribly hectic, but when Jimmy Carter was elected, Canty saw immediate change.
“Carter took a lot of stuff away from us. Luxury stuff. Nixon allowed us to have sofas and television and radios and everything we needed,” he said. “Mr. Carter came in and said we don’t need a whole lot of televisions so we had to take some of them away.”
During his free time, Canty and his wife would go see movies and go out for dinner or head to a park for a walk.
“There was always something going on,” he said. As members of Purity Baptist Church – “1325 Maryland Avenue,” Canty recalls with precision – Canty was asked to be a trustee and accepted. He still remembers a lot of members of his congregation. Once Ronald Reagan defeated Carter, Canty found himself having to interview to keep his job.
Fortunately, a former co-worker from the Nixon administration came back as director of personnel and vouched for him.
COMING BACK HOME
Canty recollects the hostage crisis that likely propelled the ‘ol Gipper into the Oval Office.
“I was grateful that Reagan got them out of there. He pulled some strings there,” he said, laughing.
Dealing with commanders in chief was surprisingly easy. They’re amiable.
“Presidents never give you a hard time. The only person that gives you a hard time is the little peons trying to go up the ladder,” he said. When John Hinckley shot President Reagan in 1981, though, a pall fell over everyone at the White House.
“Oh that was a bad day. It had all of us worried,” he said. “We just walked the halls all day long, talking to each other. We didn’t get much done that day. Everyone was wondering if he was going to make it.”
About the same time, either 1981 or 1982, Canty and his wife took a trip to see her family in Ocala, Fla., and stopped in Summerton along the way to spend the night. His wife bugged him to buy some land and move back to South Carolina. Her lobbying efforts proved successful and in 1985, he retired.
"I had enough of the White House,” he said. His wife, who had become a technician in the operating room at Holy Cross, retired, too. He went back to his old stomping ground in 1986 or 1987 when Reagan threw a party for his staff.
“We met up with all the old timers. It was very nice,” he said. Canty has seen a lot of change in Summerton over the years. When he was a boy, the streets literally bustled on the weekends.
“It would be so crowded you’d have to walk out in the street to get around people,” he said. “It was a booming little town.”
Where an auto parts store now stands was the former go-to spot for all the youngsters – the movie theater.
“The blacks had to go upstairs,” he said. In retirement, though, he had a seat in the front row, so to speak, and was asked to serve on the planning commission, which he did for a few years. He and his wife would ride bikes. They would fish. They volunteered, delivering food for needy folks.
“My wife passed 22 months ago,” he said, and the secret to being married for 64 years isn’t terribly complicated. “Sometimes you have to say, ‘Yes Ma’am.’”
He still wears his wedding ring.
“I never took it off,” he said, his voice catching, his long fingers quick to wipe away a tear. His next words are halting.
“I never took it off ... because ... a lot of women find out you’re single ... women start calling you ... “
The smile returns to his face.
