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Lewis Ringer during a videotaped interview about his memories of Newberry Electric’s early days.
Photo by Walter Allread
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Young Lewis Ringer during the war. He had already worked for Newberry Electric prior to entering the service. Ringer helped build some of the co-op’s first lines. NEC, which energized its first services on January 7, 1941, will celebrate its 75th anniversary in January 2016.
To say that retired Newberry Electric Cooperative employee and World War II veteran Lewis Ringer is a co-op man for life is an understatement.
Ringer began working for NEC as a lineman in 1940, and when America entered the war shortly after he enlisted, he parlayed his skills into an assignment with the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps. Upon returning to Newberry in 1946, he resumed work as a lineman foreman and meter reader until he retired in 1987.
“I came up the hard way,” says Lewis, who grew up one of five siblings during the Depression, when his father lost the family farm and had to take the only job he could get, as a jailor for Newberry County, to feed his family. “We had some tough times, which made me appreciate having a job and being thankful for it.”
Ringer’s prewar skills as a lineman led to his working as a “T&T man” (telephone and telegraph) for the 30th Infantry Division, which was known as “Old Hickory” after Andrew Jackson and featured the greatest concentration of South Carolina soldiers in the war.
After training in New Jersey and Florida, Ringer left for England, where he stayed a month before crossing into Normandy five days after D-Day. From there he followed the 30th Division as it fought its way across France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, taking heavy casualties in the Battle of the Bulge and always remaining just behind the front lines in order to keep communications between the 117th, 119th and 120th Infantry companies open. Bombed regularly, Ringer’s units became adept at rigging split trenches, often using railroad ties they’d line with sod, for camouflage and protection.
The fighting ended once the 30th met the Russian Red Army at the Elbe, and the division was prepared to embark on the steamship Queen Mary for the Pacific Theater when the news came of the Japanese surrender. That meant the 30th Division was the first division to return to the United States, and Ringer says he will never forget when the ship pulled into New York harbor.
“There were 14,000 of us on board, and as many as could fit were squeezed onto the deck,” he says. “We came by at dusk by the Statue of Liberty, and it made tears come in your eyes, as people were clapping and hollering and bands were playing music. It was such a joyous, joyous time.”
Upon returning to Newberry following his discharge, he went right back to work for NEC, married his wife, Helen, with whom he had a daughter, Lynn Cromer, and built a home.
“I had chances to leave the co-op, but I never took them,” he says. “Newberry [Electric Cooperative] has always been too good to me to go anywhere else.”