Granddaddy and the CCC Part 3

Granddaddy (Lester Howard) was discharged from the Civilian Conservation Corps in June 1937.  I love how the Certificate of Discharge gives a description of his.  Brown Hair. Brown eyes.  Ruddy Complexion.  (Just what is a ruddy complexion?!) Five feet, 6 1/2 inches.  

The service record for my grandfather tells me much I already knew  from just having known him.  He was a good worker and  a great cook!   Granddaddy returned to his family in Sanford, NC.  Two years later he married Cecile White of Surry County, NC.

Granddaddy and the CCC Part 3

CCC Buddies

My grandfather made a number of very good friends while serving in the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930's.  This photograph of Lester with his CCC buddies was taken in High Point, NC.  (After serving at the camp in Old Fort, NC, Granddaddy was transferred to a camp in High Point, NC.) I love the hats!  I know that even years later, Granddaddy and Clay McIntosh continued their friendship.  The two men and their families visited back and forth.

When Granddaddy started in the CCC he made $30 a month.  Here is what he did with that money:

We would send 25 dollars to our family and we got five dollars.  I sent mine to Aunt Ammie.  She a widow living on the farm with Grandfather Howard [Suggy Howard] and helping to care for Jewel and Clayton [Lester's siblings]. This I did about three years.  The five dollars took care of my cigarettes, (I smoked at that time.) hair cuts and maybe a date or two.  A movie cost ten maybe five cents and sandwich ten cents hot dog five cents.

Lester eventually transferred to the CCC camp in Yanceyville, NC where he was promoted to first cook and made $45.00 per month.  While there he helped feed two hundred men a day for more than two years.  To supplement his monthly salary he began selling belt buckles and fancy pillow covers. I would like to know the story behind those fancy pillow covers.  Where did he get them and who bought them?  I have to assume a lot of young women received these as gifts.

Granddaddy and the CCC Part 2

Lester Howard recovering from pneumonia

Not long after arriving at the CCC camp in Old Fort, NC, Granddaddy became ill.  Quite ill, actually.  Here are his words:

...I did not get out of bed.  When I did not report the C.O. and the company Dr., a Captain Kerr, came to check.  After examining me I was sent to the hospital with pneumonia for five weeks.  I was very sick.  High fever and packed in ice for several days.  The doctors did not give me much chance.  After the hospital I did not have any duties for some time......

There is more to come.......

CCC Camp and my Grandfather

My grandfather James Lester Howard (Lester) was a good cook.  It was not unusual to wake up and find him in the kitchen making a full breakfast.  I was particularly fond of his cooked apples.  He told us he learned to cook when he served in the CCC camps as a young man.

It was many years later as I pursued my family history that I began to wonder exactly what was the CCC camp that Granddaddy talked about.  He occasionally talked about things he did at the camp.  He talked about being the cook.  He told us stories about how sick he got from pneumonia.  Granddaddy saw his first snowfall while serving in the CCC.  To a kid, it sounded a little like summer camp.

But then that changed.  

I came into possession of my grandfather's journal written in the 1990's.  The journal is fairly short, but much of his writing is about his experience in the CCC. Looking beneath the words the reader finds what Granddaddy did not say in words.  His experience with the CCC had a tremendous impact on his life.  He made life long friends there and for the first time was able to enjoy a little spending money.

I'll let Granddaddy tell most of his story, but first a little background on the CCC.

The CCC camp or Civilian Conservation Corps was a work relief program put in place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 during the Great Depression.  The program was designed for unmarried men ages 18-25.  Many of the men enrolled were from "relief families". These men worked to develop and restore federal, state and local natural resources.  In return, the men were provided with a small salary.  They were organized into companies and resided in  military type camps.  Examples of the projects they worked on were erecting fire towers, planting of trees in federal forests, building of fire roads and working on soil erosion projects.

(You can learn more about the CCC  here and here.  PBS aired an excellent documentary on the CCC entitled American Experience: Civilian Conservation Corps. ) 

Excerpted from journal of Lester Howard:

July 14-1994

A Mr. Cashier who came Down to fish and hunt told us about The CC Camps.  I had never heard about.  Had first started about six months before. Paying thirty dollars a month.  We would send 25 dollars to our family and we got five dollars.  ........

After signing we were sent to Fort Bragg for physicals about 3 weeks.  This was November 1933 [Granddaddy was 18 years old.] I choose to go to Old Fort from there.  So did Robert [Robert Johnston was the son of Cornie Maddox Johnston and first cousin to Lester.] I had never been to the mountains.  There were icles [icicles] hanging off those cliffs six feet long.  I began to wonder if I was in the right place.

The CCC provided my grandfather not only a way to financially assist his family, but also an opportunity to see a different part of the state.  I remember him talking about those icicles.  For a teenager from the Sandhills of NC, the cold was quite a shock!

Stayed tuned!  There is more to the story to share!