Oral History Interview with O.L. Thomas

Lally: I guess the first thing I should ask you is a little bit about your family background. Where did you grow up?

Thomas: Well, I grew up here in Warren County. Actually, I was born in Missouri but that’s too long a story. It would take your whole tape. [laughing]

Lally: So your family, as far as you remember, always lived in Bowling Green?

Thomas: Well, of course, I don’t know all my ancestors and relatives in other places but, uh, my father, yes. That’s all there is to it here. He was the only one of my tribe here. Course he came when they had that first oil boom.

Lally: In...?

Thomas: In Missouri.

Lally: Okay. What were times like for you and your family during the Depression?

Thomas: Well, they were rough. I’m sure you’ve already heard about it. There’s not much I can add. It might interest you to know I traveled an 11-mile round trip to high school and back every day, besides milking six cows before I went and after I got back. I know I worked on farms for people for 50 cents a day and my lunch. I know some people will hear that and they’ll say, “Well, well, well, that sounds bad but then I doubt it.” But then, you go out here and ask most of these old timers, and you’ll find that’s the way it was. I wouldn’t have volunteered that if you hadn’t asked it. [laughing] When we got out of high school, most of us fellows that were in those camps...most, a great deal of them, were just out of high school with nothing to do. And we also even had some people that was in colleges that had to drop out, like, for instance, I’ve got a couple of pictures here from...of two fellows that were studying forestry at the University of Ohio who were down there; and they also worked for me as fire dispatchers at Mammoth Cave National Park. But it was rough times during the Depression. But I would say this, we weren’t in need of anything because we owned a little piece of land and raised most of everything that we needed. Five dollars would buy a month’s supply of groceries, believe it or not, in those days. Of course, you didn’t have to buy much but sugar, salt...that was about all...flour, you had to buy a little flour. You didn’t have to buy meal cause we had that ground ourselves.

Lally: So your family basically farmed for a living?

Thomas: No, my father was always in the machinery business; he was in the oil business, but after he got killed...my father got killed in 1928 when I was 12...and I was the head of the household beginning about the age of 12. That left me and my mother at home. Would you believe that we bought that old farm we lived on for $450? Fifty dollars down and $50 a year at 6 percent. I went to high school and worked on farms and paid for it. You better get back to your CCC things or you won’t have any tape. [laughter]

Lally: How did you hear about the CCC?

Thomas: Well, I had a partner, or a friend, that graduated the same day from high school I did whose mother was...worked for the employment agency. Even way back in those days they had that. And so she submitted my name to them and, uh, you had to do a little qualifying back in those days even for that thing. If you had any kind of a record or anything in your background that was a little derogatory, you didn’t get into that. Thank goodness. That’s why I was giving you...asking about this other organization. They don’t have anything but, in my opinion, riffraff in it. Now we were anything in the world but riffraff. I’m pretty cranky about it [laughter-Lally] cause a lot of people think that thing and the CCs is the same thing and they’re hardly related.

Lally: So, people in the area had to go through an employment agency to get in the CCC or...?

Thomas: They still have that, you know, but back there in those days, there was practically no jobs even at the employment agencies. But Mr. Roosevelt initiated this thing to employ young men who were trying to go to school and getting out of school to give them something to do. And, believe me, it was a fine, fine project and they did great, great work.

Lally: So how were people selected in this area or did anybody...?

Thomas: Well, you applied but if you had a bad reputation, they didn’t...or if it was known... Of course, we had some bad apples, a few of them, not too many.

Lally: Did you know anybody who wasn’t accepted for the CCC?

Thomas: I don’t remember anyone myself because they didn’t go around advertising who got rejected. But I’m sure there were some. I know there were some that got kicked out shortly after they got there, too. You see, they were controlled by the Army Reserve. It may not have been posted on that yet, but in this picture here you will note that the Army...we didn’t have what you call military training, but we had a considerable amount of military discipline. See here in the front center, the two army officers, Turner and Calvert, Captain Turner and Lieutenant Calvert?

Lally: Umhumm...

Thomas: And they kept a pretty tight string, and you didn’t go wandering around all over the world. You had a certain amount of discipline. You had to keep that area spotless as you can well see here.

Lally: So the military influence was...

Thomas: That’s right.

Lally: ...was big.

Thomas: And we lived under military conditions. Those barracks were spotless. They were kept that way and they better stay that way or you got yourself a whole bunch of KP if you were an enrollee and a whole bunch of other things, which was all right with me.

Lally: When did you...you say you entered the CCC right after high school so you were 17,18...?

Thomas: I graduated from high school...no, I had to lay out a year and so I was 19. I graduated from high school June, no May 17, 1935 and, uh, enrolled in that thing on July 8, 1935.

Lally: And how long were you in the CCC?

Thomas: I was there 26 months.

Lally: Which camp were you in?

Thomas: No. 3. Company 582.

Lally: Okay. I don’t know if my voice is picking up very well here... Describe how you felt when you left home for the CCC.

Thomas: Well, I felt great, frankly, because we needed the money; and $30 was a whole lot more than you was going to make someplace else. Besides, I was full of ambition. I had confidence because when you’ve lived the kind of life I had and overcome my obstacles, you had to have confidence. And I didn’t figure I was always going to be a CCC man, which you’ll soon find out. [laughing]

Lally: So you didn’t really get homesick or anything?

Thomas: Oh no, I...well, you see, I was just a short distance from home.

Lally: That’s right.

Thomas: However, I was a little disappointed when they unloaded me at Mammoth Cave. I thought perhaps I might get to go west. I’d always wanted to go. But they...fate says you stay here, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Lally: What kind of training did you have before you started your work in the CCC?

Thomas: Well, I don’t know what they do in high school nowadays but, uh, I had, uh, mechanical drawing and drafting when I was in the seventh and eighth grade and the first two years of high school. And I have all my drawings out there. And if I do say so, I was pretty sharp on mathematics and awful good in science.

Lally: Did they have a particular training period for you, for all the enrollees?

Thomas: Oh, when we first went in we took a bunch of shots like you do when you’re going into the military. And we had what we called a two-week...oh, I suppose you might call it a training period, but they didn’t any of us much need any training physically cause we was tough as pine knots; practically all of them was country boys anyway. Oh, we had a few from the big cities up north but not too many. So we didn’t have any physical worries or anything of that sort. But for the first two weeks while you were there, after taking those shots, they didn’t let you go out and do too tough stuff except we hiked around here and there and the other thing. And we built some, uh, horseshoe courts and volleyball courts and repaired this and that and the other thing.

Lally: So, your training, whatever...the two weeks, was at Mammoth Cave? I had heard that some went to Ft. Knox.

Thomas: Well, of course, they had a camp at Ft. Knox. See, we had a regular, uh, curriculum there, sports and also studies. For instance, we played basketball. They was eight camps that was in an organization, a league. We had baseball. We had track and field meets. Might interest you to know that I never lost a 100-yard, 50-yard or 220-yard dash. Look a here. [laughter]

Lally: Ooh. I used to be a sprinter myself. [laughter--Lally]

Thomas: I always won the...all three of the events--the 100, the 50 and the 220. I also made every all-star team they had on baseball. It just happens that there is a horrible picture that was made in 1936.

Lally: You catching a baseball.

Thomas: Well, I had it in my hand. [laughing]

Lally: Oh, they...looks like you catching a baseball. Well, uh...so they had a lot of organized sports...?

Thomas: Sports.

Lally: ...sports and recreation?

Thomas: Sure don’t look that way now, do I ? [laughing]

Lally: Can you describe your very first day in camp? Do you remember it?

Thomas: No, but I tell you what I can remember. I can remember the third day in camp.

Lally: Please do.

Thomas: Well, you see this No. 3 camp had the champion baseball team. And, of course, every time they got rookies...they called it rookies just like they do in the military...why they called for volunteers, or people who thought they could make the baseball team. Well, I thought I could make the baseball team. You see that crooked finger? I got that July 10. Fellow by the name of Crenshaw, who died just recently, was the fastest ball pitcher from way back; and so I went over and they got up a team of the scrubs, they called us...you know we were just rookies...to play their team and, uh, Crenshaw was the pitcher. Well I just happened to get that finger in the catcher’s mitt. I also could catch as well as play short and third and all the other places. And tore the end of that finger completely in two just about. And, you know, you talk about fits for about three days. That thing...whoo! There wasn’t anything they could do to stop that thing from hurting. Oh, it was that big around. It hurt! I remember that day very well. But I made the team...soon as my finger got well. [laughter]

Lally: So you were paid $30 a month...?

Thomas: When you enrolled, you were paid $30 a month and your board and clothes.

Lally: And did part of that money go to your family?

Thomas: All of it but $5.

Lally: How did you spend your personal money?

Thomas: Well, $5 didn’t go very far, but I smoked so I bought cigarettes for one thing and, uh, once in a while I’d get a day or two off and light out to Bowling Green. It cost 35 cents for bus fare, although I walked all the way from Mammoth Cave to Bowling Green a couple of times when I wanted to come home on weekends. Later on, I was not off on weekends; I was off on Mondays and Tuesdays because I had to...after I got that fire dispatcher’s job...I was employed...I had to pull weekend duty all the time.

Lally: Where did you do your shopping?

Thomas: [laughing] You didn’t do much shopping. They had a thing called a recreation hall and in the recreation hall, which is this little building right here...

Lally: Uh-huh.

Thomas: ...they had a PX like in the military.

Lally: A commissary type of thing...?

Thomas: Sort of a commissary thing.

Lally: Did you ever go into any of the local towns?

Thomas: Uh, I seldom went to Cave City. That was the only place near. Sometimes we’d go to a show down there, but I wasn’t too crazy about shows. There were too many other things I liked to do.

Lally: Now I want to talk a little bit about the work projects. Did you have...you were talking about being a fire dispatcher...did you have any other special roles in the CCC camp or could you describe that one, the different things that you did?

Thomas: Well, I suspect I better talk about the assignments of the many that were there. When they bring in rookies why...of course, they have some knowledge of you and, uh, sometimes they would assign you to this, that and the other thing. But most of the men that went there were sent in the field, that was called fieldwork, and most of them were engaged in cutting down dead trees, making fire trails, uh, soil erosion work, such as that. Some few of them were assigned to the quarries. Didn’t anybody want in those quarries but, nonetheless, some of them had to get assigned to the quarries and that was real tough work. I’m glad I didn’t get assigned there. Matter of fact, I never did get assigned anywhere. A man by the name of E. Scott Robinson was the educational instructor there at that camp, and I don’t remember exactly how he found out that, uh, I...like I said earlier, was pretty good at math and science and had drafting. And they were looking for someone for various specialized jobs, and they gave a little test up there one day. And it had to do with algebra, progressions and, uh...oh, I can’t remember that other word or two... See in high school you had some things back in those days I’m not sure if they teach now [laughing] in high school. And, of course, they found out by looking at some of the things I’d filled out with that drafting lettering that I could do drafting. So they gave me this test and I passed it so they sent me over to the central office as fire dispatcher. That, of course, carried an increase in pay...to $45 a month.

Lally: And how much did you get to keep?

Thomas: I got to keep plenty of that but then I made money besides that. I told you I’m a busy fellow. I had grand ideas one time when I was still in high school...of course, I’m glad it didn’t work out that way...of being an artist and a sign painter. I used to go down here to the stockyards when I was in high school, and I would take my cans of paint and paint farmers’ names and the name of their farm on the side of their truck at a nickel a letter. Shoot, I’d make myself eight to ten dollars a day a few times right in the middle of that Depression down there at that stockyards painting names. And then after I got in camp up there...course all these guys had to have footlockers, and I painted these eagles and their names...Company 582, Mammoth Cave National Park. I got a dollar a whack for doing that. A lot of weekends that’s all I did was paint names and pictures on top of footlockers and so forth and so on. Well, I had to do things, I couldn’t be... Then we got...Ray Scott, whose name you have on that list...was at No. 2 camp and he was assigned as a photographer, and we worked together...we’ll get to that in a minute...but Ray and I...he also, for some reason, was a sign painter; and then we got jobs painting signs on churches and motels and so forth and so on up in that area. We...Ray Scott and I, stayed awful busy. We had a heap of things to do; we didn’t have time to be running around.

Lally: So, uh, people were assigned...?

Thomas: When they first arrived there, after their two weeks, they were usually assigned to some job. That don’t mean they always had to stay on it. If they showed some ability for something else, why, they would probably get something else to do.

Lally: So you worked with the fire dispatchers?

Thomas: I...almost immediately after I got up there, I was assigned to a fire dispatcher’s job.

Lally: What did you do?

Thomas: Well, I tell you. At that time...they don’t have many fires there now...but at that time, you see, that was a project. And you got to understand those people that lived up there. You see, I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen any of those movies about the Tennessee Valley when it was building those dams and how they fought against the government and gave people an awful lot of hard times about condemning their land. See that was their ancestral homes and they didn’t want to give it up. That’s why I hauled Ray Scott around cause he was taking the worst picture he could find. [laughing] See, he didn’t have a vehicle assigned to his business and we had two at the fire dispatcher’s office so when it wasn’t bad fire season, I would haul Ray around while he would take pictures. We been chased off many a time, with a double-barrel shotgun a few times. But my chief job was first I made the original maps that were put on top of those lookout towers. They had to be set exactly north and south with a string coming up through the middle so you could take a site with an azimuth across there where that smoke was coming up, and then where two lines intersected, that’s where the fire was. I made those maps. I made the original fire atlas which I think they’re looking for up there yet. They’ve got another one but that’s not the one I want; I want the one that’s got all that other stuff on it, those original fires. But those people set a lot of fires deliberately. Of course, there was an awful lot of sage grass, there was an awful lot of underbrush, and they would have terrible fires. I’ve had as many as 400 men fighting one fire right back behind where the Mammoth Cave offices are right now. That was called Mammoth Cave Hollow. The summer of 1936 we had just about everything we could get our hands on up there fighting fire down in there to keep it from burning up all the young trees and so forth and so on. But we...I think I dispatched in that approximate two years that I worked over there at the central office, I think it was 368 fires and we had to get a detail on the way in a hurry. And I would call the ferryman and have him to meet me. We had one camp north of the river, but many times there weren’t enough men in that to put a fire out. And I would have the ferry meet trucks coming across cause you have 15 minutes to get them started on their way. I think my average report time was something like eight. When it wasn’t fire season, when it was wet...course there’s very few roads up there now...but it was honeycombed with roads and I had to know every one of those roads...the name of it, where it was going. And the whole detail. Had to have a razor-sharp memory, which I don’t have anymore. [laughing] When that intersection...where those two lines crossed, that’s where the fire was and I had to get a detail there in a hurry. The quicker we got it there, the less fire we had; the further away it was, the bigger fire we had. And a lot of people set them deliberately. Could tell you some good stories. We may get to it but I doubt it. [laughing]

Lally: Go ahead if you would like.

Thomas: No, no, we’ll save that for a little later.

Lally: Okay. I have a card on that. Did you do anything else besides the fire dispatch?

Thomas: That was a full-time job and I also had five assistants...

Lally: Okay.

Thomas: ...which I hired myself; I selected them. In other words, once I got that job...why, Ellsworth was forester and he stayed at the Great Smoky Mountains Park most of the time and left me, believe it or not, at the ripe old age of 19. That’s Ellsworth who was the forester in charge of Mammoth Cave National Park, and he also had the Great Smokies, and he stayed down there all the time. After he found I was competent, I ran Mammoth Cave National Park at the ripe old age of 19. I could have drafted the President of the United States if I’d a needed him. In time of fire. Did you know that?

Lally: I did not know that.

Thomas: Well, it was that way then. I don’t know whether it is now or not. This is a picture of part of them. That fellow, I can’t remember his name offhand, but he was from up in Ohio, and this boy’s name is Kidd and this one is named Begley. Now these two fellows were in forestry school at the University of Ohio and came down there and worked in the summers. This is Union Skip, the orneriest dog that ever lived. And this is O.L. Thomas right here. And these were the fellows I got to help me in the dispatcher’s office. There’s one more...there’s two others that are not shown in this picture, but they weren’t working there at the time. We had to increase our overhead some. A boy by the name of, well, last name’s Goffsinger...Frank! And Paul Nunn. Now Nunn had also had some drafting experience in high school, as had this fellow here, so they assisted me. Oh, we made all kinds of maps. Lord, property maps and those condemnation suits; we did practically all that work. We made the drawings. There’s just a lot to it.

Lally: So you also worked with drawing out the maps to the buildings that were still standing in the area? Is that...?

Thomas: The land areas around the buildings. Practically all of it was farm area. We had to check those surveys because, you see, those were condemnation suits. And they had to establish the exact location and the exact boundaries and the exact acreage and so forth and so on to reach a price for the land, see. Even though the government was paying more than the land was worth, those people still didn’t want to go and you can understand that. I could, at least. That was their ancestral homes. As a matter of fact, sometimes when I wasn’t working, it would be wet weather or snow on the ground, I would go to these old houses and climb up in the attics and the lofts after people were gone and somewhere up there they’d have all these things stashed. I’m talking about old land grants from the very beginning, old land charters, old wills, old deeds, probably a lot of old pictures. I can’t remember all the stuff I did collect out of those old attics and so forth. Somewhere up there I think they still have all that stuff stashed. Someday they may be able to get it out and into the museum. They’re trying to get a museum. Have you been up there?

Lally: Yes.

Thomas: Do they have anything going into the museum at all yet?

Lally: They’re still working on it.

Thomas: He told me that he didn’t know whether they still had all that stuff. It’s a shame if they don’t have it because it was really interesting stuff, and I would take all of that stuff and turn it in to them. I also dug up all kinds of Indian relics. I got...one time I had a man let me...you wouldn’t know what a rock house is, but that’s one of those bluffs back under; that’s what they used to call them. I had a man let me down 300 feet down the side of one of those things on a rope so I could dig [laughing] under it. That little boy Union Skip, I don’t know whether I’d trust him to do that again, by golly.

Lally: So how many years were you in the CCC?

Thomas: Just a little over two years.

Lally: Two years?

Thomas: Twenty-six months actually.

Lally: Okay.

Thomas: Let’s see, I think I have something here. No, that’s not the one I’m looking for. Oh well, I don’t know where it is. I have a letter here that was written...here it is. I decided to cast my lot someplace else.

Lally: “This is to certify that Mr. Ora Lee Thomas has been an assistant in my office since October 1935 and it is his interest...” Hmm. Oh, it’s a recommendation. And who is this from?

Thomas: Uh, it’s signed by Albert J. Ellsworth, isn’t it?

Lally: Yeah.

Thomas: Turner? Signed by Turner over at the...let’s see. Albert J. Ellsworth. See the end of it? w-o-r-t-h? Yeah, cause he was my immediate supervisor in the forestry. But I had decided...I got married June 19, 1937 and I thought, well, the best thing for me to do is get me something else to do and I was offered a job and...you could “go over the hill,” but I didn’t choose to do that.

Lally: No.

Thomas: I’d rather have this little diploma here, wherever it is. I like to be legitimate. Somewhere in here is a certificate of discharge.

Lally: Uh-huh.

Thomas: Is that mine or somebody else’s?

Lally: That’s yours.

Thomas: So...David H. Pritchett was the superintendent of what they called the ECW, Emergency Conservation Work, and Roy G.Turner was captain commanding. I didn’t want to “go over the hill,” didn’t want to be a deserter; I wanted everything to be legal. I’m a damn crank.

Lally: So was your wife from this area?

Thomas: Oh yeah, she was always around here...

Lally: Back to when you first got in the CCC, can you describe a typical day of work for you?

Thomas: Well, a typical day of work for me was not a typical day in the Civilian Conservation Corp because I was on my own after I got this job. I was the...as I earlier said, you might not expect that a man 19 was doing that; but I had complete charge of the firefighting, everything in it. Also...I also had six or seven employees under me whose...I had to make the schedule for them to work by. Uh, they all had to have days off and I had to make schedules where I had someone at the fire stations. That was a job. [laughing] Course all of them were not in No. 3 camp. All of the fire dispatchers were in No. 3 camp but I had some sweet time keeping walking patrols on the job and some of the lookout patrols on the job. We’ll get to that in a minute. But I didn’t have a typical day because my day was what needed done, and I was my own supervisor and that’s the way I like it.

Lally: How many fire stations were there in the park area?

Thomas: If I recall correctly, there were at least eight. Each of the camps had a...I don’t know if you can see it in this picture or not, but each of the camps had a water tower and each of the water towers had a...I don’t believe you can see it from here, but this picture was made from the top of a water tower. It was out here, and at the top of each tower there was a lookout station and then we had at least four or five...let’s see, they had one called Brooks Knob which was down toward Edmonton, uh, uh, Brownsville. And there was one over in the northern area of the park called White Oak, and there was one on the north side of the river called Hickory Cabin, and, uh, I can’t remember the name of the others just offhand. That’s seven of them and they had at least eight and they were scattered at strategic points on high places, of course. White Oak, that’s another one of them. It was over on the north side, too. But I mentioned White Oak, didn’t I? I remember the boys’ names that ran that one. One of them’s name was Reynolds...both of them’s names was Reynolds; they were brothers and they were both in No. 2 camp. I didn’t have any trouble with the Reynolds boys, but I had trouble with Double-Ugly Anderson. Everyone had a nickname, by the way. [laugher-Lally] He wasn’t ugly at all; he was plumb handsome.

Lally: How did they get these nicknames?

Thomas: Oh, I don’t know. I was Kid Beef.

Lally: Kid Beef?

Thomas: Yes, I was Kid Beef.

Lally: And you don’t know how you got that?

Thomas: Hell yes, I know how I got it! Because I was also the champion boxer and my face looked like beef. [laughter] Yes, I was... [laughing], but, anyway, Double-Ugly was anything but ugly. Oh yes, they had boxing matches and all that stuff. I didn’t even get to fight in my weight. Lord, I had to fight the heavyweights. Yeah, I did. But anyway, Double-Ugly was in No. 3 camp and his assignment was on the top of No. 3 lookout tower. Every time we’d have a fire that I thought I needed to get an azimuth from No. 3 camp, I’d have to send down to No. 3 barracks and get him up on top of the tower. He just laid down there and slept all the time. That was the orneriest rascal. Then we had several walking patrols...see, they had a telephone, a portable telephone, they carried with them and there was a telephone line ran down this area that they had to walk. They’d stick a plug in the ground and throw a thing over the wire and they could call me...

Lally: If there was a fire...

Thomas: They was supposed...each patrol...like O.D. Poda. Well, I better not say that...a colored camp. He had to report in on the hour all the time, I can hear him now, “This is O.D. Poda reportin’ on the hour.” [laughter]

[End of Side 1]

Lally: This is the second tape of my interview with Mr. O.L. Thomas on his work with the CCC. June 8, 1987.

Thomas: I think it perhaps might have been the late 1890s or somewhere along in there or early 1900 some doctor got the idea that...to build a sanatorium there at the...in Mammoth Cave would be good for tuberculosis. It didn’t work that way. As a matter of fact, it was bad for it. So that didn’t last long. That was just a little sideline. I didn’t know whether you might know about...

Lally: No, I didn’t.

Thomas: ...the cave or not. But, uh, anyway, we had...because of the faults about the air conditioning. Once in a while now...you were asking about some of the camp life...once in a while, the storm or something would knock out the pumps and the water supply and we would be rationed on water. And in order to take baths, we would have to go down to what’s...where the...did you go down to the ferry?

Lally: I’ve seen it.

Thomas: The ferry’s not located exactly where it was. It was up the river about half a mile in the old days. And there was...all the way across there was kind of a shallow place about, oh, I’d say four feet deep. And they would be a thousand men down there taking baths at the same time. [laughing] I remember lots of weekends when the water was shut off due to a storm or something...we had some means ones, too...well, we’d all have to go down to the river to take a bath. And, by the way, if we got a fellow in that was scared of water, you know, and wouldn’t take a bath often enough, they’d take him to the latrine then they’d throw him in the shower. And get in there with a G.I. brush and scrub him and he didn’t have to have that done but about once and he’d go take a bath when he needed it. [laugher] But, all in all, the boys didn’t have any trouble to speak of. Oh, now and then they could be a little ruthless but not...it didn’t amount to anything.

Lally: We already talked about the biggest successes of the CCC. What do you consider to be the biggest problem that they might have had or...?

Thomas: You know, I don’t recall any major problem. They were well accepted, I thought, all over the country as far as I was concerned. I think it was smiled upon...

Lally: Do you think...?

Thomas: ...because it was a fine project and the work that they did was well known by practically all the citizenry. The only courthouse I can think of right now...now they built a number of courthouses and, of course, that was just in this area. Out west they did a lot of things we didn’t do here and in the east they did some things but now they built...have you ever been to Cumberland Falls?

Lally: No, I haven’t.

Thomas: That original lodge was built by the Civilian Conservation Corp, and that stone bridge across Cumberland River down there just above the Falls was built by them. Excellent work. Of course, they had overseers but many men...let me give you an example of one. Very, very few of the people that was in those camps were literate; however, I had a friend who enrolled in those camps not long after I did and, uh, his sweetheart was...had graduated from high school. His father had been in the logging business. Name was Cox . I’ll think of his first name in a minute. But, anyway, he couldn’t even read and write; and I knew the girl he was going with and all that sort of stuff here in Bowling Green. She’d write him letters and I’d read the letters to him. Now this is not to say the man was ignorant, I mean stupid. He was ignorant but he didn’t...had never had the opportunity...his daddy wouldn’t let him go to school. Neither one of his brothers had ever attended school. But I’d read the letters to Cox and then he’d want me to write her a letter, and I’d say, “What do you want me to say?” He’d say, “Just say what you’d say.” I must have said the right things cause he married her. [laugher-Lally] And then he took a discharge from camp...she managed to get him a job somewhere in the construction business and he learned it well. Not only that, but I taught him to read and write before he ever left up there. And he was sharp. It didn’t take him any time to learn to read and write. You remember I told you that I also had a hand in the educational department over there? Here I am a high school graduate and I’m doing all this stuff, too; but, anyway, I was a little sharp, if I do say so. But I taught him to read and write and they got married; and she got him a job with someone she knew that was in the construction business and he became a millionaire. [intake of breath-Lally] He...the last time I saw him, which has been several years ago now, he was driving big, long Cadillacs and throwing money around. He started...he went to Louisville and started his own construction company. I think that was one of my highlights. I think I’m about as proud of that as most anything I’ve ever done.

Lally: Oh, yeah.

Thomas: I feel like I rendered a service to my fellow man. I guess I’m a little conscientious about things like that. You know, I sit in there...that’s the reason my eyes are so red...I stay up till two or three o’clock in the morning. I’m busy right in there now answering a bunch of letters and some requests for ancestors and so forth. But I think everybody ought to do something. I also write a church bulletin. The pen is mightier than the sword. I’ve been mowing that church yard up there now for about three years, so I wrote an editorial the other day in that church paper and you know what? Last Thursday they was six fellows showed up there and mowed the yard for me. [laughter] I didn’t know it would be that effective.

Lally: You’re right though.

Thomas: So last night they was horsing me about that editorial and I said, “You know, the pen is mightier than the sword.” [laughing]

Lally: So after your two years in the CCC, what did you do?

Thomas: Well, I came out and took a job doing this, that and the other thing. I was working for the Pet Milk Company. They had a very large plant here.

Lally: Which company?

Thomas: Pet Milk.

Lally: Uh-huh.

Thomas: Had a very large plant here. So I took a job working down there which was slavery, but I had always fancied that I wanted to be in the selling business but I had no experience. I had experience, but they didn’t know it...you couldn’t prove it. But finally some fool came along and gave me a job in the coffee business, and I more than tripled their business the first month I was with them. And that’s the job that this letter right here caused me to quit and hired a man to take my place and then they discontinued the camp down there.

Lally: So then you got a job...?

Thomas: And they were very sorry about all that, but that didn’t help my financial condition any. But about a month later, Stanley Coffee Company was looking for an experienced coffee salesman, and I was the only one in town so I didn’t have any trouble getting that job. Oh, by the way, to get this first coffee-selling job, I had...I had to post a $250 bond. Everything I owned in the world at that time wouldn’t have amounted to $250. I must have sold the fellow pretty good. He gave me the job, but I told him, “I can’t take it because I can’t raise the money.” About a week later, he came back and he says, “Can you raise $50?” He said, “We’re determined to give you that job if you can find any way at all to post $50, and we’ll take the rest out of your pay.” I said, “I don’t have $50.” I said, “I’ve never borrowed any money in my life, but I’m going to try.” So I went up to the Citizens National Bank and introduced myself to the fellow, to the banker. I says, “Now the man’s over at the hotel that’s wanting to give me the job. You may call him and talk with him.” He did. He gave me the $50 and I got started in the selling business and been in it every since.

Lally: Except you also were in the Air Force during World War II?

Thomas: Spent three and a half years in the Air Force. But let me tell you a little about my selling experience in the insurance business. After I got out of the Air Force in ‘45, I went in the insurance business. And the highest echelon you could achieve in the life insurance business is known as the Million Dollar Round Table. And for 30 years, I was the only MDRT between Louisville and Nashville. One of the companies that I represented started what they called a Continental Club. See, you could choose a Cadillac or a Continental if you were their company leader. They did that ten years and I won six of the ten. I got into the estate planning end of it. See, there’s lot of tax advantage in life insurance. I’m not trying to sell something here cause [laughter-Lally] I’m retired now. But, anyway, I got to doing a lot of business with the big farmers around all over the country, some of them as much as 6,000 acres of land. You see, inheritance tax was a monster. I’ve known of a few cases where they sold everything the people had and it just paid the interest on the tax due. So I cut all these clippings out of the papers, and I’d show them to these people. It’d scare the daylights out of them. “What can I do?” Well, I’d show them a tax book. Boy, you’d be surprised at the attorneys and accountants that I’ve pinned back in holes cause they’ll fight you. You see, the biggest mess anybody’s estate’s in when they pass to the great beyond, the more money the attorney and the accountant gets out of it. And the better prepared he is, the less they get out of it. It hasn’t been too long...too many years ago when one of the leading accountants here in town told an automobile dealer I didn’t know what I was talking about. I said, “You call him and make an appointment with him now cause he’s going to retract that.” We went over and he said, “My tax book don’t say that.” I laid it out...mine on his desk and I said, “Yours is just like mine.” I said, “Now you tell this fellow straight.” Well, he looked at my tax book and he said, “I don’t remember seeing that in there.” I said, “Well you’re supposed to be a CPA.” I said, “You’d better dig your book out here.” Well, he was all apology. He got his book out and it had the same paragraph in it mine had, and he’d told him I didn’t know what I was talking about. People don’t challenge O.L. Thomas. I’m a fighter. If you haven’t been able to tell it in the past, you’re pretty dumb.

Lally: I can tell.

Thomas: Nobody challenges me. Nobody tells me that there’s something I can’t do. Cause if it can be done, somebody has done it, I think I can. And I just might improve it a little bit. [laughing] Yeah, I went out for a baseball...I went out...when I was in the Air Force...for a baseball team that had four major leaguers on it, and everybody laughed at me. They said,

“Well, you can’t make that team.” I did. I was maintenance instructor over at Scott Field just out of St. Louis, and I spent all my time over at Sportsman’s Park. I only had to be on the field four hours a day and the rest of it I took infield practice, stayed in the dugouts with the Cardinals. I knew every major leaguer in both major leagues in those days. I’d send all those signatures home, all those autographs and all that sort of stuff to the various different people that I knew that loved that kind of stuff. [chuckle-Lally]

Lally: Well...

Thomas: So much for all that crap.

Lally: Do you have anything else you’d like to tell me about the CCC?

Thomas: Do you have any more questions?

Lally: Ah...I’ve finished all my questions.

Thomas: Well, I can’t think of anything else of any...uh, I can tell you one story, but I’d better not on this tape. I told it to...whatshisname?

Lally: Bob.

Thomas: You know what I’m talking about?

Lally: No, I didn’t hear the story. He was going to let me listen to the tape, but I haven’t had a chance yet.

Thomas: Well, I’ll tell you what. If you turn that off, I’ll tell you the story.

Lally: Okay. Thanks.

[End of Tape 1]

[Beginning of Tape 2]

00K: This is the second tape of my interview with Mr. O.L. Thomas on his work with the CCC, June 8th, 1987.

O: // taking psychrometer readings. I think it perhaps might’ve been in the late 1890s or somewhere along in there, or early 1900s, some doctor got the idea that, to build a sanitarium there in the Mammoth Cave, would be good for tuberculosis. It didn’t work that way. In fact, it was bad for it. So that didn’t last long. But it was just a little sideline, I didn’t know whether you might know about.

K: No, I didn’t.

O: About the cave or not. But anyway, we had, because of the thoughts about the air conditioning. Once in a while—I know you was asking about some of the camp life—Once in a while, the, a storm or something would knock out the pumps and the water supply. And we would be rationed on water. And in order to take baths, we’d have to go down to what’s, where the—Did you go down to ferry? Ferry’s not located exactly where it was. It was up the river ‘bout a half a mile in the old days. And all the way across there was kind of a shallow place, about, oh, I’d say four feet deep. And there would be a thousand men down there taking baths, at the same time. I remember lots of weekends when the water was shut off due to a storm or something, and we had some mean ones too. Why, we’d all have to go down to the river to take a bath. And by the way, a fellow, if we got a fellow in that was scared of water, you know, and he didn’t take a bath often enough, they’d take him to the latrine, then they’d throw him in the shower. And then they’d do their hair with the G.I. brush and scrubbed, him, and he didn’t have to have that done but about once, and he’d go take a bath when he needed it. But all in all, the boys didn’t have any trouble to speak of. Oh, now and then they would be a little ruthless, but it didn’t amount to anything.

2:00K: We already talked about the biggest successes of the CCC. What do you consider to be the biggest problem that they might’ve had?

O: You know, I don’t recall any major problem. They were well accepted, I thought, all over the country, as far as I was concerned. I think that it was smiled upon. Because it was a fine project, and the work that they did was well-known by practically all the citizenry. The only courthouse I can think of right now—now they built a number of courthouses. And of course, that was just in this area. Out west, they did a lot of things that we didn’t do here. And in the east they did some things. But now they built—Have you ever been to Cumberland Falls?

K: No I haven’t.

O: That original lodge was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. And that stone bridge across Cumberland River down there just above the falls was built by them. Excellent work. Of course, they had overseers. But many men. Let me give you an example of one. Very very few of the people that was in those camps were illiterate. However, I had a friend who enrolled in those camps not long after I did. And his sweetheart had graduated from high school. His father had been in the logging business. His name was Cox. I’ll think of his first name in a minute. But anyway, he couldn’t even read and write. And I knew the girl he was going with and all that sort of stuff here in Bowling Green. She’d write him letters, and I’d read the letters to him. Now this is not to say the man was ignorant, I mean stupid, he was ignorant but he never had the opportunity. His daddy wouldn’t let him go to school. Neither one of his brothers had ever attended school. But I’d read them to—well darn. I’d read the letters to Cox. And then he’d want me to write her a letter. And I’d say, “What do you want me to say?” He’d say, “Just say what you’d say.” I must’ve said the right things, because he married her.

K: [laughs]

3:57O: And then he took a discharge from camp. She managed to get him a job somewhere in the construction business, and he learned it well. Not only that, but I taught him to read and write before he ever left up there. And he was sharp. Didn’t take him any time to learn to read and write. Remember that I told you that I also had a hand in the educational department over there. Here I am, a high school graduate, and I’m doing all this stuff too. But anyway, I was a little sharp, if I do say so. But I taught him to read and write. And they got married. And she got him a job with someone she knew that was in the construction business, and he became a millionaire. The last time I saw him, which has been several years ago now, he was driving big long Cadillacs and throwing money around. He started, he went to Louisville, and started his own construction company. I think that was one of my highlights. I think I’m about as proud of that as most anything I’ve ever done.

K: Oh yeah.

O: I feel I rendered a service to my fellow man. I guess I’m a little conscientious about things like that. You know, I sit in there, that’s the reason my eyes are so red. I’ll stay up ‘til two and three o’clock in the morning, I’m busy writing there now, answering a bunch of letters and some requests for ancestors and so forth. But I think everybody oughta do something. I also write a church bulletin. The pen is mightier than the sword. I’ve been mowing that churchyard up there now for about three years, so I wrote a letter, editorial the other day in that church paper. And you know what? Last Thursday there were six fellows showed up there and mowed the yard for me. [laughs] I didn’t know it would be that effective! [laughs]

K: You’re right, though.

O: So last night, they was horsin’ me about that editorial. I said, “You know, the pen is mightier than the sword.” [laughs]

5:44K: So after your two years in the CCC, what did you do?

O: Well, I came out and took a job doing this that and the other thing. I was working for the Pet Milk Company. They had a very large plant here.

K: Which company?

O: Pet Milk Company. Had a very large plant here. So I took a job working down there, which was slavery. But I had always fancied that I wanted to be in the selling business. But I had no experience. I had experience, but they didn’t know it. You couldn’t prove it. But finally some fool came along and gave me a job in the coffee business. And I more than tripled their business the first month I was with them. And that’s the job that this letter right here caused me to quit. And the hired man to take my place, and then they discontinued the camp down there.

K: So then you got a job //

O: And they were very sorry about all of that, but that didn’t help my financial condition any. But about a month later, Standard Coffee Company was looking for an experienced coffee salesman, and I was the only one in town. So I didn’t have any trouble getting that job. Oh, by the way, to get this first coffee selling job that I had, I had to post a two hundred and fifty dollar bond. Everything I owned in the world wouldn’t have, at that time, amounted to two hundred and fifty dollars. I must’ve sold the fellow pretty good, for he came to give me the job. And I told him, I said, “I can’t take it, ‘cause I can’t raise the money.” So about a week later, he came back, he says, “Can you raise fifty dollars?” He says, “We’re determined to give you that job if you can find any way at all to post fifty dollars, and we’ll take the rest out of your pay.” I said, “I don’t have fifty dollars.” I said, “I’ve never borrowed any money in my life.” But I said, “I’m gonna try.” So I went up to the Citizens National Bank, introduced myself to the fellow, to the banker, I says, “Now, the man’s over at the hotel that’s wanting to give me the job. You may call him and talk with him.” He did. He gave me the fifty dollars. And I got started in the selling business, and I’ve been in it ever since.

K: Except you also were in the Air Force during World War II?

O: Spent three and a half years in the Air Force.

7:46O: But let me tell you a little about my selling experience in the insurance business. After I got out of the Air Force in ’45, I went in the insurance business. And the highest echelon you can achieve in the life insurance business is known as the million dollar roundtable. And for thirty years, I was the only MDRT between Louisville and Nashville. One of the companies that I represented started what they called the “Continental Club.” See, you could choose a Cadillac or a Continental if you were their company leader. They did that ten years, and I won six of the ten. I got into the estate planning end of it, see, there’s a lot of tax advantage in some life insurance. I’m not trying to sell something here, ‘cause I’m retired now. But anyway, I got to doing a lot of business with the big farmers around all over the country. Some of them had as much as six thousand acres of land. You see, inheritance tax was a monster. I’ve known of a few cases where they sold everything that people had, and it just paid the interest on the tax due. So I cut all those clippings out of the papers, and I’d show them these people, scare the daylights out of them. “What can I do?” Then I’d show them my tax book. Boy, you’d be surprised at the attorneys and accountants that I’ve pounded back in holes, ‘cause they fight you. You see, the bigger the mess that anybody’s estate’s in, when they pass to the great beyond, the more money the attorney and the accountant gets out of it. And the better prepared he is, the less they get out of it. It hasn’t been too long, too many years ago, when one of the leading accountants here in town told an automobile dealer that I didn’t know what I was talking about. And I said, “You call him, make an appointment with him now.” ‘Cause I said, “He’s gonna retract that.” We went over, he says, “My tax book don’t say that.” And I laid it out, mine, on his desk, and I said, “Yours is just like mine.” I said, “Now you tell this fellow straight.” Well he looked at my tax book, he said, “I don’t remember seeing that in there.” I said, “Well you’re supposed to be a CPA.” I said, “You better dig your book out here.” Well he was all apologies. He got his book out, it had the same paragraph in it mine had, and he had told him I didn’t know what I was talking about. People don’t challenge O.L. Thomas. I’m a fighter. If you haven’t been able to tell it by the past, than you’re pretty dumb.

K: I can tell.

O: Nobody challenges me. Nobody tells me that there’s something I can’t do. ‘Cause if it can be done and somebody has done it, I think I can. I might just improve it a little bit. [laughs] Yeah. I went out, when I was in the Air Force, for a baseball team that had four major leaguers on it. And everybody laughed at me. They said, “Well you can’t make that team.” I did. Then I was made an instructor over at Scott Field, just out of Saint Louis, and I spent all of my time over at Sportsman’s Park. I only had to be on the field four hours a day, and the rest of it I took infield practice, stayed in the dugouts with the Cardinals. I knew every major leaguer in both major leagues in those days. I’d send all those signatures home, and all those autographs and all that sort of stuff to the various different people that I knew that loved that kind of stuff.

K: Well, do you have anything else you’d like to tell me about the CCC?

O: Do you have any more questions?

K: I’m finished with my questions.

O: Well, I can’t think of anything else. If any—I could tell you one story, but I’d better not on this tape. I told it to what’s-his-name.

K: Bob.

O: You know the one I’m talking about?

K: No, I didn’t hear the story, but he was gonna let me listen to the tape, but I haven’t had the chance yet.

O: Well I tell you what, if you’ll turn it off, I’ll tell you the story.

K: Okay.

[CONCLUSION OF INTERVIEW]