Local veteran left family farm to serve in World War II

By Carrie A. Mizell

Before being drafted to serve in World War II, John Thomas (J.T.) Beck had never left his family farm in Gilchrist County, except for a few trips to Gainesville.
The year was 1943, and Beck was a 19-year-old newlywed when he answered a call to duty. In service to his country, Beck traveled first to Pennsylvania, and then to Virginia before completing 12 weeks of basic training in Texas. Once that was completed, he boarded a ship bound for Casablanca, Africa, where he spent numerous months serving his country in a war for America’s freedom.

“I knew I had to go and I was ready and willing,” Beck said. “If I would have known how long I was going to be over there, I might not have been quite so willing.”
At 87, Beck lives today on the land where he was born. The son of Joshua Liman and Sarah Elizabeth Beck, J.T. was the youngest of nine children born on the family farm south of Trenton. Beck’s daddy died when he was just 4 years old, and his momma, who suffered from physical disabilities after being in a house fire as a child, washed clothes for other people and hoed crops to make money to support her family.
“My mother was not equal to her, but I would put her next to Christ’s mother,” Beck said, as his eyes filled with tears. “She did what she had to do for us.”
Beck walked to and from Trenton schools, up until he graduated in 1942. After completing high school, he worked on his family’s farm growing corn and peanuts before he was drafted into the Army on February 23, 1943.

On Independence Day in 1941, J.T. met the love of his life, Dorothy Doke, at Fanning Springs where they walked together over the Suwannee River Bridge hand in hand. On December 5, 1942, the two married and started their life together. At the time, they had no idea that in just two months, J.T. would be drafted and leaving his family and the only place he’d ever called home.
Dorothy stayed with J.T.’s mother while he was overseas and welcomed their first child, a daughter she named Thelma. It was almost two years before J.T. returned home after World War II and met his first of four children.
While in the Army, Beck worked in a replacement depot, which was a military unit containing reserves for troops on the front-line. Beck’s brother Eugene served on the front-line and one night while in Casablanca, Beck recalls his brother coming to see him and what a welcome sight family was so far from home.
While in Italy, Beck came into contact with Wilbur Smith, a classmate from Trenton, and the two men shared memories of their hometown. Sadly, Smith was killed in action the very next day.
“I never saw the battlefields, but I can remember seeing planes flying over our heads with their motors shot off,” Beck said. “I saw so many things happen; I know it was God’s blessing that brought me home safely.”
Once World War II ended and Beck’s tour of duty was over, he returned to the United States ready to live out his days in Gilchrist County.
“Seeing all those places all over the world made me thankful and proud to be an American,” Beck said. “I was fixing to have to go to Japan when the second atomic bomb was dropped which ended the war. I know there are people who think that second bomb should not have been dropped, but I think it saved a lot of our boys’ lives.”
Beck farmed for several years after returning home from the war, before joining a plumbers and pipe fitters union where he worked up until his retirement in the 1980s.
J.T. and Dorothy Beck continue to live on his family’s farmland south of Trenton. They have four children, one of whom passed away at a young age, seven grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
“I am thankful we’ve never had a fuss,” Beck said, referring to his almost 68 years of marriage. “We’ve disagreed before, but we’ve never had a fight. I think that may be why we’ve lived so long…We’re happy.”