At 101, Former Rawlins Mayor, WW II Veteran And Candy Lover Is Living A Sweet Life

He still makes dinner for his daughter, tries to keep up a yard he prizes, and has a funny story from his U.S. Army days in World War II.

The former council member and mayor of Rawlins also maintain a sweet tooth after celebrating another milestone birthday.

Yes, every birthday is a milestone when you are 101.

“I really don’t feel like I am an old man,” said Everett Mann, who shares a home with his daughter, Beth O’Grady. “My legs are a little wobbly, there’s things I can’t do and I accept that, but I really have no complaints.”

Mann was born in Casper and was about to enter high school when his father lost his job at the Standard Oil of Indiana refinery. The family moved to Sinclair where his dad worked in the Sinclair refinery.

After graduating from high school in 1943, Mann entered the U.S. Army and spent time at bases in Pennsylvania and New York before being given orders overseas with the 158th Quartermaster Battalion as a driver.

He landed on Normandy Beach six days after D-Day.

“We had to crawl overboard off of those Liberty ships and climb down those rope nets they had hang down the side and get on landing craft,” he said. “They got over as close to the ground as they could and then we had to drive vehicles off the landing craft in deep water for a while and then get them on land…”

Even though the landing was six days after the initial invasions, Mann remembers the opposition from the Germans as “still pretty hot.”

Assigned as a jeep driver, Mann’s role was to drive officers, run messages to various headquarters, and escort convoys of supplies to the front lines, distributing clothes, ammunition and ordnance, food and more.

Buzz Bomb


As the war took place around him, one day the Germans sent a buzz bomb toward the Americans and Mann happened to be in the wrong place at the right time in Belgium.

“They just put enough fuel in it, tried to drop it in the right place, and one pretty near us,” Mann said. “And I got a lot of shrapnel and glass from that.”

It was the first of two Purple Hearts. His second came in the bitterly cold winter during the Battle of the Bulge. The exposure to the winter weather resulted in frostbite and frozen feet.

Mann said he spent a lot of time in the hospital and after doctors decided they could not save his toes, he was told they were going to have to amputate them. Then a shipment of the new miracle drug called penicillin was sent over to the military hospitals.

“When we got the penicillin, we had a lot of shots and the penicillin stopped the gangrene,” he said.

As his unit advanced across Europe, Mann and other injured soldiers were put on hospital ships and sent back home. He returned on the USS George Washington, a hospital ship. Mann was sent to a hospital at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He stayed there for a few more weeks and then received a discharge from the service.

A favorite story from his World War II service involves a new lieutenant he was driving around to various assignments. Mann said he was trying to do things “just right” and the officer kind of reprimanded him for going too slow.

Some of the young lieutenants “kind of thought” they were lieutenant generals, Mann said.

“He said, ‘Look soldier, when you see my leg come up, you get this vehicle moving.’ I said, ‘Yes, sir,’” Mann recalled. “He came back to the Jeep and threw his leg up and I took off and hit his leg and he spun around and fell on the ground. He didn’t say anything to me. He just got in the Jeep, and we took off. We went someplace, I let him off and never saw him again.”

Post-War Years


Back in Wyoming, Mann tried to follow a dream to go to college to become an engineer and redesign diesel engines. But when he spoke with the University of Wyoming, he learned that he would probably have to go to a school in Louisiana for that education.

“I wanted to redesign that injector pump and see if I could improve that,” he said. There were plenty of tanks and other heavy equipment issues in the diesel engines he witnessed in the U.S. Army.

Mann said he did not want to leave the state again. So, he went to the Sinclair Refinery and got a job, leading to a 35-year career and a role in the laboratory testing gasoline for octane.

In addition to his refinery role, he became a member of the AFL-CIO union and then its president. He was appointed by Wyoming Gov. Ed Herschler to the union’s state executive board.

Following his retirement from the refinery, Mann worked for three years as a bailiff in Carbon County courts which also involved working with young people in the court system who needed to do community service as part of their sentences.

“I enjoyed that job and most of them turned out to be pretty good kids,” he said.

In his personal life, as a young veteran working at the refinery, he met a woman who also happened to be a Sinclair neighbor after he got out of the service. She worked as a nurse at the refinery. He started talking with her, love blossomed, and an engagement led to marriage.

With Mary Elizabeth Mann, he had two daughters. Those daughters, Karen Mann Austin and O’Grady have given him five grandsons.

Over the years he has enjoyed fishing with grandsons and spending time in the mountains at a family cabin.

After moving from Sinclair into Rawlins in 1961, he also became interested in what was going on in city government. He became a city councilman for two terms and then the city’s mayor for another two terms.

Proud accomplishments include the construction of a sewage treatment plant and the replacement of several miles of an old wooden water pipeline that supplied the city with its mountain-based water source.

“It’s about 30 miles of pipeline from Rawlins to the springs up in the mountains,” he said. “I got about 10 miles of it replaced before I got out of the mayor’s job.”

A ‘Fun’ Dad


When he finally retired, Mann said he kept busy keeping up his yard, growing flowers, and spending time with family. His wife passed away in 2006 and he now lives with his daughter.

O’Grady characterizes her father as someone who is still a “lot of fun.” She said her dad cooks for her every day.

“I feel really blessed to have him,” she said.

Mann’s oldest daughter, Karen took him out to a favorite Rawlins restaurant for his birthday on Feb. 21. A friend of Karen’s made Mann two shirts with special messages to honor his latest milestone. He wore one to the restaurant and posed for a photo.

The shirt reads: “It took me 101 years to look this good.” His other gift tells readers that the wearer is: “Made in 1925, with all original parts.”

Austin said growing up, her dad was a quiet family man, but also a “big jokester.”

“He loves practical jokes and puns,” she said. “We’d go camping. He was working full-time and being mayor and all this stuff and we still took a trailer up to Ryan Park every weekend.”

Admitting to being a lifelong optimist, Mann’s secret to longevity is simple.

“Just be happy and treat people decent and don’t be fussing all the time and be mad,” he said.

O’Grady adds “and eat everything you want … including candy.”

Mann confesses his sweet tooth has been with him all his life and enjoys any kind of candy, but chocolate ranks high. He still eats his vegetables as well.

Growing up in Casper during the Great Depression, Mann said times were tough but remembers his family ate rabbit, chicken, pancakes, waffles, and biscuits and gravy. Biscuits remain a favorite.

What’s his plan for the future?

“Oh, just keep eating candy,” he jokes. “And enjoy life one day at a time, enjoy my family and friends, and that I live in Wyoming.”

Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.