Gus Dermand
Gus Dermand, World War II veteran, businessman, city councilman and mayor, was born in Webster City July 16, 1924. He’s spent all but three of those years in Webster City. He graciously recounted the memories of his long life with the Daily Freeman Journal for this article.
A Webster City Childhood
Dermand’s early years were spent in a house in the 400 block of Second Street, where today’s Town & Country Insurance building stands. “I remember three houses on the north side of the street: ours, Ed Prince’s and Barney Brinn’s.”
Later, his father opened his business, a men’s hat shop, in the 500 block of Second Street, and moved the family into an apartment upstairs. “Dad had a successful business. He sold hats in every state in the country and Canada, and never spent a penny on advertising.”
How did he do it? Dermand explains.
“A salesman visiting Webster City might buy a new hat. You weren’t well-dressed then without a well-blocked hat. Maybe then, he’d call on customers in another state, and someone would admire that hat. On the inner band was a small label, ‘Dermand’s, Webster City.’ He got many, many orders from a tiny label in the hats.
“Dime stores were thriving. There were three, all doing good business: J.J. Newberry, Woolworth’s, Scotts. You’d dress up to go downtown, and it was hard to get down the sidewalks for the crowds of people. It was exciting. Every storefront was full, and all this was during The Depression.”
“Downtown sold everything. The big lady’s clothing shop was Eichman’s. There were three men’s shops: The Hub, Lehnhard’s, (later Lubbers,) and The Men’s Shop. Saturday night downtown was the place to be. Farmers dressed up, loaded up the family, and drove to town. They’d sit in their cars, and just watch people on the sidewalk. It was entertaining.”
“The alley behind the 500 block of Second Street is where I grew up,” he said. “Kids made their own fun. We’d chase the ice man’s wagon, pulled by mules, and grab ice chips on a hot day. Building model airplanes out of carved balsa wood and lightweight paper was popular then. For a big thrill, we’d set them on fire and launch them off a rooftop,” he laughed.
“I went to grade school in South Building, Junior High at Washington Central, then, Lincoln High School. I was fascinated with the workshop. Mr. Naden was our shop teacher. That was about 1930-1932. Later, he designed and built electric scoreboards. Home economics was on the second floor, chemistry lab on third. I graduated in early May 1943, and there was no doubt where I was going next.”
War Duty in the U.S. Navy
By late May 1943, Dermand was on a train to Bayview, Idaho. The tiny town in northern Idaho’s Bitterroot Mountains was the site of the U.S. Navy’s Farragut Naval Training Station. Hastily opened in June 1942 on Lake Pend Oreille, more than 230,000 sailors would be trained there during the war.
Dermand remembers: “It was the most unlikely place you could imagine for naval training. I was in basic there. Then I went to sonar school in San Diego. The British invented sonar, basically underwater radar; all our instructors were British.”
Assigned to destroyer escort U.S.S. Kloiner, Dermand said, “We weren’t fast enough or armed well enough to sail with the fleet. We had a top speed of 23 knots; a regular destroyer can make 30. Our job was convoy escort duty and the main cargo of the convoys was fuel oil.”
“We sunk a German U-boat off the coast of New Jersey in 1944 too. Divers verified it, and it checked out with German navy records.” Author’s note: U-869 was sunk by a Hedgehog bomb from U.S.S. Howard D. Crow and a depth charge from Kloiner. Dermand was discharged in March 1946 and was soon happily back home in Webster City.
Memories of Postwar Webster City
“Not much had changed. Farmers still came to town Saturday nights. Downtown was still busy with shoppers.”
What has changed in more recent decades, Dermand believes, has made all the difference in the Webster City of today: the drop in Hamilton County’s population from 26,000 in 1946 to under 15,000 today. “People didn’t drive to Fort Dodge, Ames or Des Moines to go shopping like today; they came to the county seat. It had everything they needed, and they were loyal to their county.
“We lost the small farms too. Used to be, you could raise a family on 120 acres. My brother-in-law did it; raised two girls and put them through school,” he said.
“It was an optimistic time. New businesses came to town. Morton’s is an example. They employed a couple hundred people and had a huge fleet of trucks to take the frozen pies to market.”
Dermand’s Cafe
In 1927, Dermand’s uncle Steve opened Dermand’s Cafe at Second and Seneca streets in Webster City. From the start, it served three meals a day, seven days a week.
“It was endless work,” he recalled. “My brother Ted did most of the cooking. He was a chef.” He said cooks may do preparation work or run a fryer, but a chef has more training and experience, buys supplies, and can cut and roast meats.
“We didn’t have the variety of food then. No breaded shrimp, only mayonnaise or French salad dressings, no prime rib, no seafood assortment. There was roast beef, roast pork and baked ham. We introduced liver and onions in the late ’40s. To this day if I go to Hy-Vee, people say ‘we miss your liver and onions’.”
He added, “We opened at 6 a.m. and had a good breakfast business. We were always full-service; today restaurants tend to be either self-service or limited service delicatessens. Full-service means making fresh food to order, and serving it at tables or a counter. I’d be in the cafe at 6 a.m., take a few hours break after lunch, then back for the evening business. I’d finally go home sometime after 10. It’s a demanding business and people today want a better life.”
Dermand’s Cafe is long closed, but a grandson graduated with a culinary degree from Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny, and a granddaughter from culinary school in Lincoln, Nebraska. “She’s been hired as a chef to open a new Appelby’s restaurant in Lincoln.”
City Council and Mayor Dermand
Dermand served eight years on City Council of Wbster City, beginning in the early 1990s; two of those years he was mayor. During his early years on the council, the city faced one of the most threatening episodes in its history. “We placed $8 million in investments with a broker. He owned banks in Colorado and California and they were in trouble. He took our money and used it to prop up his banks.”
Gary Groves, who was then city attorney, was tasked with getting the money back.
“Groves said, well this is beyond me, so we brought in two high-powered lawyers from Chicago who tracked down the crook at his bank in Colorado. Over time, we got our money back, with interest, but it was a close call. If we’d lost that eight million it could have sunk us.”
Dermand looks back at his time on City Council with satisfaction.
“We built the first Brewer Creek Estates addition. We rebuilt downtown. The 100-year-old water and gas lines were all still in service running through vaults under the sidewalks. Sixty percent of downtown merchants agreed to pay for new sidewalks. We’d loaned some money to Frigidaire earlier and they paid it back when we were doing all the work downtown. That repayment from Frigidaire covered the cost of the new street lights, planters and benches.”
If he has a concern for the future, he says it’s that “we’ve forgotten how to treat each other. People have their noses in their Ipads; there’s no real communication.”
He encouraged people to get involved in whatever interests them most in town. “Volunteers have always made the difference. Now we need a new generation to step up and get to work.”