Early Life
Beck was born in Stockton, California, to Lemuel and Mary (Tierney) Beck. His father was a carpet cleaner. The Becks moved to Seattle, Washington when Dave was 4 years old. The family was poor, and Beck an only child. He attended Broadway High School but was forced to quit high school at the age of 16 in order to go to work.
Dave Beck took a job as a laundry worker, and joined the Laundry Workers International Union. A short while later, he got work as a driver for a laundry truck. He helped organize Local 566 of the Teamsters after a short strike in 1917.
He was drafted in World War I and served as a machinists' mate and gunner in England with the United States Navy.
Read more about this topic: Dave Beck
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“In an early spring
We see th’appearing buds, which to prove fruit
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair
That frosts will bite them.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“City people try to buy time as a rule, when they can, whereas country people are prepared to kill time, although both try to cherish in their mind’s eye the notion of a better life ahead.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)