2014

Sam Kogutt

Sam Kogutt was born in 1925 in Bay City, Texas. His father, a cobbler descended from six generations of shoemakers, came to America through Galveston around 1913, fleeing Poland to avoid a long conscription in the Russian army. His mother, older sister, and brother followed years later through Ellis Island. The family traced its roots to a town east of Warsaw that once had a large Jewish population, and Sam later learned his grandparents perished in the Holocaust. His father worked hard, at one point buying a former bank building and a house, though the Depression forced him to sell off much of his business and return to shoe repair. Sam worked as a boy in grocery stores and a department store, and grew up with a close group of friends, attending Jefferson Davis grammar school and Bay City High School, where he lettered in track and football.

Sam entered the Army at 17 through a training program, then went to basic training and joined a division trained by the Marines for amphibious landings. Slated for the Pacific, his unit was rushed to Europe after the Battle of the Bulge, going into action in early 1945. He fought in the encirclement of the Ruhr Valley, where hundreds of thousands of Germans surrendered, and once marched some 200 prisoners himself. He helped liberate a small camp near Siegen and later reached Flossenburg, though his sergeant kept him from entering. After the German surrender he was sent to Japan, arriving after the war ended, and served about six months as an assistant company clerk, forming friendships with local people and learning to ski near Fukushima.

After the war Sam finished the University of Texas in 1949 and came to Dallas seeking work. He married Irene in 1951, and the couple raised three sons. He worked eleven years as a production manager for a vinyl products company, helping pioneer travel garment bags, then moved briefly to Indiana before returning to Dallas. In 1965 he and Irene started Dart Manufacturing, a license plate and later credit-card stamping and promotional products business that grew successful with his three sons and was eventually sold. A lifelong fisherman, he invented fishing products including floating tackle boxes and reel covers. In Dallas he was active in the Jewish community, including a Jewish Boy Scout troop, and in later years he befriended Holocaust survivor Max Roman, who had been at Flossenburg.

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