Interviewer(s): R. Higgins. Morgan City, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

Jimmy Jett was born in Morgan City, Louisiana in 1924; he attended grammar school there and before high school, his parents moved to Greenville, Mississippi. After graduation, he enlisted in the Navy, and was on a submarine in Pearl Harbor. He completed two semesters at the University of Kansas while in the Navy and then was discharged in 1946. He moved back to Morgan City and got a job at a gas station. Jobs were hard to find, but his persistence (and personal connections) paid off within a year and he got a job at Mobile. He worked at Mobile from 1946 till his retirement in 1985, working his way up from being a dishwasher, holding jobs as a boat operator, boat engineer, barge captain, crane operator, construction foreman, production supervisor, and marine supervisor.