Page 32 - South Mississippi Living - November, 2019

PEOPLE coast characters
story and photos by Lauren Rackley
ach morning, the Triplett-Day Coffee Crew meets at the same time and the same table. While the tradition didn’t begin at Triplett-Day, the men in this group now meet there every weekday to exchange stories, argue, and joke with one another.
If you walk into the soda fountain at 10:30 a.m., you’ll find Harry Bell,
Tom Simmons, Chip Speaker, Frank Smith, George Edwards, Ron Schmidtling, and George Rosetti Jr. sitting around a long table littered with coffee cups and books. Surrounded by walls with newspaper clippings and old photographs, the men who participate in this tradition have been coming to the soda fountain for so long that they themselves have become part of its history.
Poem Love, owner of Triplett-Day, has watched the group evolve over the years. She stated, “They’ve been around, and they’re kind of like the face of Gulfport.”
However, before becoming pillars of the Gulf
Coast community, each of these men served in the military. Some entered the military as enlisted service members while others joined as officers. Local hero, Harry Bell, was a mortar gunner at the Battle of
the Bulge and was taken prisoner until May 1945. Collectively, the men have served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
After serving in the military, each of the men eventually found their way to the Gulf Coast.
Bell and Speaker both moved here for jobs at the Mississippi Power Company. Smith worked for the railroad company, and Edwards became a home builder. After living in Detroit and Puerto Rico, Schmidtling came to the Gulf Coast to work for the U.S.D.A Forest Service.
32 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • November 2019
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