by Van Mitchell, Staff Writer
Family, duty, and giving back are some of the hallmark virtues that Army veteran Clyde Houston has lived by.
Family and friends gathered on July 13 at the Montellano Event Center in Oklahoma City to celebrate his 104th birthday and paid homage to a man who made a positive impact on so many lives.
Houston was one of the Greatest Generation born in Porter, Oklahoma on July 17th, 1920.
Houston faced many challenges and according to his family, he never wavered on his duties as a soldier and a father. He served in the U.S. Army from 1941-1945 as a Quartermaster military occupational specialty and provided troops with supplies and logistical services.
Houston grew up during the Golden Age of American Sports and emphasized the value in good physical fitness and sporting activities. Throughout his lifetime, he continued to teach the importance of maintaining good health and physical fitness with his own athletic children and shared this love of sports with all the neighborhood kids.
To help teach kids the value of sporting activities and get kids involved with different athletics, he built a neighborhood basketball court to give his children and local kids an outlet to play sports, build teamwork skills and prepare these young men and women for life lessons that you can only learn from playing sports.
“My dad was kind of the caregiver for us and the neighborhood kids too,” said Deborah Lynn Furman, Houston’s daughter. “When my dad would cook, he would make sure the kids in the neighborhood, he provided them if they wanted to eat, they were welcome to it. He played basketball with the kids. That is how most of us learned how to play sports because my dad taught us. My dad was a hands-on dad. My dad got out there, played with the kids in the neighborhood, played with his kids. That’s the kind of man he is.”
Houston grew up in humble surroundings in Haskell, but later became a well-known high school athlete.
“My dad was a basketball star with his school, Haskell High School and played football and baseball,” Furman said. “He loved baseball and even played against (Negro League and Major League Hall of Famer) pitcher Satchel Paige (as adults). Back then my dad said they used to go to these little towns (across the country) and play and they would run them out of town because they did not allow Blacks.”
Throughout his military service and civilian career, Houston held several jobs and positions but none of those careers were as important as his role as husband to his late wife of 70 years Dolly Jewel Durham Houston and father to his eight children.
Houston has 22 grandchildren, 57 great-grandchildren, and 26 great-great grandchildren.
“My dad was the kind of man that we all would sit down at the dinner table and eat together. My parents did that daily,” Furman said. “He taught us how to honor the elderly. He taught us how to be respectful and mindful of people’s feelings and to be kind and giving.”
Furman said giving back was important to her father and his faith.
“My dad was a real giving person,” she said. “If it were something that a church member was lacking, like not having food in their house, my dad would take a sack of groceries to those people. My dad instilled in us that you had to have a good work ethic. You had to be honest, and you could not take anything that did not belong to you. You had to work for what you wanted because he did that. And my dad took care of us. We never wanted for anything, and with eight kids, that is a task in itself.”
Furman said her father was proud of his military service but added that his experience was shadowed with the way Black soldiers were treated.
“I will put it this way, my dad said they weren’t fair about certain things. It was certain jobs that the Black soldiers were assigned to,” Furman said. “And my dad was a Quartermaster. He took the supplies around to the different platoons.”
Furman said her father taught his children to not be prejudiced and treat people how you would want to be treated.
“My dad didn’t curse,” she said. “My parents didn’t use profanity. We weren’t subjected to that. We had loving parents. My dad is easy going. My dad was the kind of person, like at Christmastime, my dad, if you give him a pair of socks, he is happy. You give him anything. He didn’t want us to grow up being like that (angry) because he felt like eventually things would get better and eventually it did.”
After separating from the military, Houston worked for Spartan Aeronautics before moving from Haskell to Oklahoma City.
“My mother wanted to move to Oklahoma City where her mother was, so my dad got on at the post office downtown,” Furman said. “He later worked construction and hurt his back and retired.”
Furman said faith has been her father’s bedrock in life.
“My dad wakes up every morning praying to God, every morning,” she said. “Faith is very important to him. My dad was a member of Church of God in Christ, my mother was Methodist, so it was different from what my mother was accustomed to. But once my mother married my dad, she joined the Church of God in Christ and that is all I know. I know that faith, love, and being decent and honest is the main objective that my parents taught us. And to believe in God and always trust in Him because that is your source.”
