Planes, Trains & Heroes: A Story of Warner Robins and the Robins Region

FROM THE PEOPLE
“In March of 1946 my father, Joe Dembowski, was transferred to the Army
Air Forces base at Wellston Air Depot (presently Warner Robins AFB). My
family, dad, mother, older brother, sister, and I were flown to the base in a
small military plane. I was five months old at the time. I think I have a picture
of mom holding my sister, dad holding my brother, and the pilot holding me.
It was after the war, and my mother, Mary Dembowski, told me it was like a
frontier ghost town, with many houses just abandoned with furnishings left
in them. People would go and take what they needed from them.
“Soon afterwards, when dad was sent to Japan to serve with the Army
of Occupation, mother stayed in Warner Robins with us three toddlers.
After he returned, they chose to make Warner Robins our home. Joe and
Mary quickly became leaders in their church and the community, giving
back to the town they called home. Among the boys in her Boy Scout den,
were a future governor and an astronaut. Joe was to Boy Scouts what
Mary was to Girl Scouts. Both influenced generations of Warner Robins’
children through their examples and caring.
“Mary taught girls that we could be anything we wanted to be, if we
worked at it. She taught independence and self-esteem, and she modeled
what it meant to be a strong woman, inspiring generations of women. When
her own girls were gone from the home, she established a Girl Scout Troop
with the young women at the Sheltered Workshop working the Junior Girl
Scout program. Those young ladies, who were often only on the receiving
end of giving, learned that they, too, had worth to give and share with others.
“Mary was instrumental in teaching at least three generations of local
youth how to swim, first at the old dormitory pool, then as director of
swimming for Parks and Recreation Department for the city. At the same time, Joe, also a Red Cross certified water safety instructor,
taught adults to swim in the evening. Before swimming pools were common place and easily accessible, many never had the opportunity
to learn to swim. Both were community heroes, vested in the worth of every person and dedicated to challenging them to reach high
and persevere through any difficulties. A classmate shared with me at my high school fifty-year reunion that ‘They believed in me when
I didn’t believe in myself, and so I tried, and found out I could! I am forever grateful they were part of my upbringing!’
“Warner Robins was a great place to grow up. Pleasant Hill Road was on the far edge of town. I have memories of riding as fast as
I could down that hill to get up enough speed to make it to the top of the next where it dead-ended onto Green Street. We picked
wild blackberries where the Galleria Shopping Center is today and gathered pecans from stately trees in the old dormitory area at the
corner of Green Street and Davis Drive. We had an old farm fire bell high on a 4-by-4 pole in our back yard, and the house rules were
that when it rang, we had five minutes to get home. I guess you would call us ‘free range kids’ today. We knew we had to be home
when the street lights came on. I delivered papers for The Warner Robins Sun, a weekly paper. We had an old Willy's Jeep Station
Wagon, and on summer Sunday afternoons, Daddy would drive slowly along Highway 247 from the main gate to the seven bridges
section looking for discarded soda bottles. We would take them home, wash them out with soapy water and small pebbles for agitation,
and redeem at the grocery store for the deposit money. Regular soda bottles were worth two cents, and the big Canada Dry bottles
were a nickel. That change was saved in a Liberty Bell bank and was used to fund mini vacations--day trips around the state.
“I remember when the Cuban missile crisis happened, the base closed mid-afternoon, and everyone was sent home with
instructions to watch the CBS Evening News and be ready to get back to base within thirty minutes if called. Those next weeks and
months were tense times at the base and in the homes, especially because we were within presumed range of those missiles and a
possible target.
“Mary Dembowski lived to age ninety-three and was a member of the Pioneers Club in Warner Robins. You had to have lived
there by 1950 to belong.”
- Joan Dembowski Pottinger
Chapter Two ✦ 23