Lally: Um, the easiest place to start is for me to ask you about some of your
background. When were you born, Mr. Hall?Hall: I was born January the 29th 1917.
Lally: And where did you grow up?
Hall: I’ve lived in Glasgow all my life until I went to Mammoth Cave in the CCCs.
Lally: What were times like for you and your family during the Depression?
Hall: Oh, that’s hard to say. My...we...my father and mother raised six kids and
it wasn’t easy. He had a farm but, of course...farm, there’s no income from a farm. Had tenant farmers, carried them through the year and at the end of the year, they couldn’t begin to pay you back. And, uh, let’s see, what else was I going to say? We had...we managed very well. My father had the rural mail route; and if it hadn’t been for that, why we’d really been hurting for sure. Did like everybody else, the best you could.Lally: Where did you fall in the line of six kids?
Hall: Pardon?
Lally: Where did you fall in the line of kids...how...what...?
Hall: Sixth.
Lally: You were the youngest?
Hall: Well, I have five and I have a stepson.
Lally: Okay. Which number were you when you were growing up? That’s what I mean.
Hall: Five.
Lally: You were number five?
Hall: Um-hmm.
Lally: I made...okay...got it. Well, how did you hear about the CCC?
Hall: Well, I graduated from high school about that time and the WPA was coming
along...I don’t guess you know what the Works Progress Administration...do you know about that? I got a job with the WPA as a timekeeper. I graduated at Chris...well, finished school in the mid-term and I went to work in January timekeeping with the WPA. We started building the golf course out here. First lick of work that was hit on it. And there was a lady here in town that was a recruiter...was a friend of the family’s, and she was recruiting for the CCCs. And she kept after me about going over there and going over there. Course I’d never heard of it, didn’t know what it was. And this WPA job along in the fall kind of fizzled out and I ended up going over there...I believe it was in September...to Mammoth Cave to the CCC...September of ‘37.Lally: How were people selected in this area for the CCC? Just recruiters, did
you say or...?Hall: Pardon?
Lally: How were people selected for the CCC?
Hall: Well, this lady...all I knew about it, she was just taking names and
they’d send you over there and they’d process you after you got over there.Lally: Did you know of anybody who wasn’t accepted in this area?
Hall: No, no. Some of them got sent back home pretty quick, but I reckon they
took about all of them.Lally: Really. So you entered in September of 1937?
Hall: September of ‘37, uh-huh.
Lally: And how old were you at that time?
Hall: Twenty-one.
Lally: And how long did you stay in the...in the CCC?
Hall: Well, I went in in September and...I wish I’d found my discharge...it was
about 20 months or maybe 21 or 2 months. You could only stay two years. The job I was working on was going to work into a job with civil service with the parks, and I stayed until we got that worked out. Then I went to work for the park service right out of CCC camp. There...she caught us![greetings exchanged as someone enters]
Lally: Okay. Which camp were you in?
Hall: Uh, 543 NP2 at the new entrance. [rummaging of papers] ...543rd, CCC Camp
No. 2, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. There used to be another hotel up there right in front of this camp, a new entrance...where the new entrance to the cave is. Do you know where that is?Lally: Um-hmm.
Hall: Well, that used to be a big hotel up there. And we turned in right beside
the hotel.Lally: And that eventually burned down or was torn down?
Hall: Torn down. Did away with it. [scraping sound]
Lally: Can you describe how you felt when you left home for the CCC?
Hall: Well, I tell you...just...not really. I don’t know. Just something...I
needed...didn’t have a job...didn’t have any money. No job. Needed something to do. That just seemed like the thing to do at the time.Lally: I guess you...did you get homesick at all or were you old enough so that...?
Hall: No, not really because we was only about like 25 miles from home. I could
come home on the weekends and some of the family, brothers and sisters and mother and father, they were over there quite often.Lally: So it was almost like not being gone? [laughing]
Hall: It wasn’t too much of a problem. I think they enjoyed coming over there
more than they enjoyed seeing me coming home. They always liked to go over there.Lally: Get out of the house now and then. [chuckle] Uh, you say you had a bit of
training before you actually started work. How long was that and what did that consist of?Hall: You mean...I didn’t have any training except for high school.
Lally: I mean at Mammoth Cave. You know, like an orientation...
Hall: You mean before I went to work with civil service?
Lally: Did they have like an orientation period for you?
Hall: Nah, you just go over there and go to work...wherever they put you.
Lally: Okay.
Hall: They had...well, they had different crews and they just put you, I reckon,
on the one they want to. They had one that goes out in the trees and...out in the woods and works. And some build trails and whatever‘s to be done, they just send a bunch to do it. Planting...planting trees. Mowing. Cleaning up or anything. They just...Lally: I think some of the guys from out of state had to go to Ft. Knox for a
few weeks before they came down. That’s what I...Hall: No, no they didn’t go anywhere, except Mammoth Cave.
Lally: Do you remember your first day in camp?
Hall: [laughing] Lord, no.
Lally: Okay. [laughing]
Hall: No, it wasn’t any big deal I don’t reckon. They just...first thing I do is
go up there and give you a bunch of clothes and tell you where to go eat. The rest of it just kind of falls into place.Lally: Uh...
Hall: Everybody was real nice. I mean, there wasn’t any problems that way.
Because...it wasn’t an entirely new camp. So many of them were there already, see. Maybe go in there like 15, 20, 25 at a time. Everybody...the rest of them knew what to do. There weren’t any problems that way.Lally: Describe how you were paid...the salary system.
Hall: Well, you go in there...you get what you would call $30 a month and
keep...$30 and your clothes and your meals. That’s it.Lally: And did some of that go to your family?
Hall: No. Mine didn’t.
Lally: Oh really? They must have changed that somewhere along the line.
Hall: They might have sent it. If they did, they got it back. I don’t know. They
might have...I don’t remember...Lally: Maybe that’s because...
Hall: They paid us right over there. Now what you can get between paydays...you
can go down to the canteen and buy $5 scrip books to spend at the canteen. But when payday come, you had to pay that back. You could actually...you might have been limited on that, too. I don’t remember, but you could get those scrip books...nickels and dimes and quarters out...and go down...just a little book you tear out...Lally: Huh.
Hall: ...and go down to the canteen and spend them just like money but, of
course, you’d have to pay for them when you did get your money.Lally: Uh, I guess some of the guys...maybe they were a little bit younger when
they went in... $25 was sent home to their family and then the government would match that so that their family would have $50 a month, where they might not have any...Hall: Nah, we didn’t.
Lally: That must have changed somewhere along the line...
Hall: We didn’t. We got a flat-out $30 and if you made assistant leader, which I
did a little later on, you got $36. If you made a leader, you got $45. A leader was like someone that works under a foreman that takes the men out and works them and works them. The foreman don’t get out there and oversee at all. He tells the leader what to do and then he gets...like a sergeant or something in the Army, I suppose.Lally: What would the assistant do, which you got?
Hall: Well, he was just a little bit under the leader. The leader didn’t want to
do something, he’d let the assistant leader do it.Lally: [laughing] Well, how did you spend your money, your personal money?
Hall: That wasn’t hard. I don’t know. No particular way.
Lally: Did you go into town very much to Cave City or...?
Hall: Well, we...they’d take a truck in maybe once or twice a week, I don’t
know, to a movie. I think you could go to the movie for like a quarter maybe to Cave City. And that’s about it. I came home. A lot of times I’d hitchhike home. And then they’d usually take me back.Lally: Did you have any problems getting rides?
Hall: Nah. Not really. No.
Lally: Not like it is today?
Hall: No, didn’t have all that shenanigans on the highway like you have today.
Come on now, help me... [to someone else?]Lally: You’re doing fine.
Hall: Nah, that wasn’t...up until just the last few years, it wasn’t any trouble
to get a ride. I used to pick up everybody I’d come to on the road. I don’t any more.Lally: Yeah, cause you never know.
Hall: Can’t afford to.
Lally: Well, what different types of projects...uh, did you work on at Mammoth Cave?
Hall: Well, we had in there...I don’t...there wasn’t a classified job with the
park service as far as working. You had your superintendent and the rangers and that was just about it. And they hired a maintenance foreman, Gootch Travelstead, from Bowling Green. His mother used to be a music teacher at Western.Lally: Hmm.
Hall: Gootch Travelstead came in as maintenance foreman. We didn’t have a shop,
we didn’t have a building, we didn’t have a tool. And we’d go to CCC camp and borrow...he borrowed a truck, I’ve got pictures of it in there, borrowed a toolbox and some tools [laughing] and we had to...had to...the water system, the sewer system and the buildings that we’d try to maintain or check on and see after. We’d walk those sewer lines every day and check every manhole and see that everything was all right. Had a pump sta...a pump station over at Three Springs. You ever been over to...?Lally: Yes, I saw that this spring.
Hall: They don’t use that...where do they get the water now?
Lally: I think they’re connected to the main system...yeah.
Hall: Green County? Well, then they put one over at Branford Springs. It’s right
up on top of the hill...over the hill from Three Springs.Lally: I never saw that one.
Hall: I was up through there here a while back and it looked like it was all
deserted and tore down and couldn’t even get in. We used to have to go to the pump house, oh, two or three times a day. And then later on they built another pump house just like it across the hill. We’d have to check the waterlines and take the water samples. I think that was every week maybe. Go to all the springs whether they...well, to every house in the park. A lot of people lived around in individual houses. And we’d have to go take water samples and send to the state to be tested. And then take water, of course, from the hotel and send it. And over at Three Springs you’d chlorinate the water. You had to keep all that working. Now there was a boy, Gilbert Sanders, have you...you ought to have his name on there, too.Lally: I’ll write that down.
Hall: That’d be another one I’ve been wanting to go see. Gilbert Sanders and he
lived over there at Ollie...Ollie, Kentucky or did, over there just...between 31W and Brownsville.Lally: Okay. Well, we’ll check that one out.
Hall: He worked...he went to work for the parks service, too, and he stayed over
at the pump houses. He was in the CCs, too. He worked at the pump houses. Now, where was I? I don’t even know.Lally: Uh, sending the water in.
Hall: Oh, about what we did? That was about it. We’d just...what we’d do if we
needed anything, repair something, just do the best we could. But at each CCC camp, you had a blacksmith shop, a garage and, uh, of course, tools...supplies for tools. And we’d use them, that’s what we did. There was just two of us, Russ Cravens and myself, that went to work with Gootch. The only job I had over there. And he’d man the phone and we stayed with him all the time.Lally: So this was the area around Camp No. 2?
Hall: Pardon?
Lally: The area around Camp No. 2 that you worked...that you had as your...
Hall: Well, no, we’d go to the pump...see, the pump stations were way on the
other side over there. And then we’d go...the sewer system down in back of the hotel. You’d go down like on Echo River and, uh, we’d take the old truck and later on...we’d use the truck on the weekend. Russ and I would do that on the weekend as well; one of use would be there all the time. Go and take...they had little things you’d put water in, drop a little stuff in it to see if it was getting enough chlorine...orthochloridine or something they called that stuff. You’d put a drop or two in a little tube. We’d leave one tube plain and then put a little drop in this other one and then compare them. And then you had a little chart there to see how much of a reading you was getting on chlorine. If you wasn’t getting enough, you’d turn it up and if you was getting too much, you’d turn it down.Lally: So it’s like what you do at the swimming pool? They do that at the
swimming pool sometimes...Hall: Swimming pool?
Lally: Swimming pools...to make sure they have enough chlorine. I think I’ve
seen people test it.Hall: And we’d use these little old things, like one of these video things,
little things you put films in and look through. You put these two little tubes down in there and you put this fluid in one of them then you hook that up there and turn this to get your right...the color that matches the color it turned, then you take a reading off of it.Lally: Okay. Did each camp have a maintenance area type thing, you know, you all
were the only ones that took care of...?Hall: No, we were it.
Lally: For the whole...?
Hall: Well, the whole...the water and the sewage and the buildings.
Lally: That’s a lot of responsibility...
Hall: Well, there wasn’t any then, honey. There wasn’t none nowhere then. You
know up there where all that garage area and all that is? There wasn’t a thing up there! There wasn’t even a warehouse or utility building or...up there where that big...where that big shop is, that’s the first building that was built. But before that, the only thing that was down there was a big rack back there in the back that they’d take the CCC trucks down there on Saturday mornings and wash them. And that was everything that was there. Wasn’t nothing. No houses...just those six houses down there and they were just being built then.Lally: But Camp 2 had the maintenance responsibility?
Hall: No, Gootch Travel...the park did.
Lally: Oh, the park...okay, and you worked under...?
Hall: Just the two of us worked with the maintenance foreman, which was Gootch Travelstead.
Lally: Okay. I’ll get off of that. [laughing]
Hall: I’ve got old Gootch’s picture in here. He went up to Ft. McHenry, Maryland
when he left here. We went up there to see him one time.Lally: So how much free time did you have?
Hall: Well, we worked five days a week. Had Saturday and Sundays off. On the
weekend, there wasn’t no KP; I was on KP about half the time, I think. Every weekend. I was always doing something. Old Sarge, “You want KP this [not clear]?” They didn’t use a roster; they just used a finger. [laughter--Lally]Lally: What kind of things would get you put on KP?
Hall: I think Sarge kind of liked me and he just liked to see me on KP. Nah, it
wasn’t that bad. You do a little something you weren’t supposed to, he’d put you on there.Lally: When you did have free time, what did you do with it?
Hall: Well, we’d...a lot of time we did our own washing. We had to do our own
washing. There wasn’t any washing machines and stuff. Russ and I would usually get us a lard can or something and go up there and heat a bucket of water and wash our clothes. Some of the clothes I’d bring home and Mom would wash them, but it was a workload thing. Get up there and wash them ourselves. They’s all just one size. You put them on and they had a big buckle in the back that you pull up...old dungarees and a pocket would stick out there that far. And that was one of the favorite tricks in the CCC...hot pants...them pockets would stick out and you’d be standing in chow line or something and somebody’d throw a cigarette in your pocket. [laughter--Lally] No telling how many hundred pairs of them things been burned up.Lally: Oh my gosh. Well, uh...
Hall: That’s like something you’d get on KP for.
Lally: Yeah. [laughing]
Hall: If you get caught.
Lally: Did you do any of that, Mr. Hall? [laughing]
Hall: Oh, you know I did.
Lally: Well, did you participate in any of the organized recreation activities,
like some of the teams, or...?Hall: They had ball games. No, I did...they had classes down there. I took part
in some of them. They was a Ms. Neville, Sally Neville from Cave City, used to come out there. She tried to teach a little shorthand and typing and then...I got to where I could type a little bit but shorthand, that don’t mean a thing to me now. Kind of weird. And they had woodworking shops. They had things there for you to do. I worked in the woodworking shop some, piddling around. Had a library; you could go read if you wanted to, which I did very little of.Lally: Well, then, you were talking a little bit about the thing with the pants.
Did...were there any other pranks that the guys liked to play on each other?Hall: Yeah. Yeah, there was. [laughing] Did you ever get short-sheeted?
Lally: I haven’t, but I’ve seen people...
Hall: You know how it works?
Lally: Uh-huh.
Hall: There was a lot of that going on. Those guys come in there...some of them
go out on liberty and they’d come in there about half high sometimes and go down through a barracks and flip every bunk in there right upside down and it didn’t matter if it was midnight or 2 o’clock in the morning. You’d be in there and they’d pick your bunk up and flip it.Lally: Did they play many pranks on the new guys coming in?
Hall: Yeah. [laughing] They’s too numerous, I imagine...I don’t think there was
any special trick.Lally: Okay. There were four camps there...wait, let me check my tape. There
were four camps at the CCC. Was there much interaction between...?Hall: The camps?
Lally: Yeah, the guys in the camps.
Hall: I don’t really remember much. They might have played a few ball games
among theirselves. But they had, over there in the hollow below the hotel, they had a...now I never did go down there to that place, but they used to have what they called a Whoopee Hall. Ever hear of the Whoopee Hall?Lally: Yeah. [laughing]
Hall: It was a great big...like a small gymnasium, just a big building and
they’d have dances and socials down there. But after I got over there, they weren’t using it, never was used much...it was used some. I don’t think I ever did go to anything down there. I’ve been down there lots of times, but... I’d usually come home if I had a free weekend.Lally: So maybe it was most of the guys that...?
Hall: ...that didn’t live here, uh-huh. Yeah, a lot of them were from way far
away and didn’t go home. They’d take them...they’d furnish the trips and take them down there and bring them back. And that was for all four camps. I don’t know whether all used it at one time or not, but they all had access to it anyway.Lally: How did the whites feel about the presence of blacks in a camp nearby?
Were there any problems?Hall: I don’t know of any problems they ever had like that. Of course, they were
segregated at that time. You know, Flint Ridge over there, No. 1 camp, was all black except the supervisory staff. Vernon Black was the superintendent over there, and I don’t know whether they had any black foremen or not. That camp, it wasn’t over there too long after I got over there. It was the first one that went out. Then the No. 3 camp went out. And I don’t remember whether No. 1 or No. 3 went out first, but they both...might have been at the same time. Then that just left the ones across the river, No. 4 and No. 2, and they were there...they was still there in ‘42, about the time they started the draft, you know, and most of these boys were drafted. A lot of them just went right out of camp into the Army.Lally: How did the local residents feel about the CCC being in the area?
Hall: Far as I know, they got along great. I never knew of any conflicts. Of
course, if a fellow needed something on the outside and all, they were the first ones to send a truck with men down there to help them...any kind of a disaster or anything. I never knew of any trouble.Lally: Were any of the local residents upset -- maybe with the government, not
just the CCC -- about being displaced from their homes or...because of the park being developed, that you knew of?Hall: You mean the people that lived there?
Lally: Yeah.
Hall: No. Now that would have come up above me. I wouldn’t have known about that
had it happened.Lally: That’s right. You got in a lot later.
Hall: I was just an enrollee.
Lally: Did a lot of the guys date local girls or go into town a lot?
Hall: Yeah, some of them did. Several of them got married over there. Russ got
married, the boy I worked with. Joe Kulesza married one of them. There’s a Hope boy that married a girl out there. Billy Woods married one out there. There were several of them. I don’t know where they’d get the girls when they’d have those dances unless they bring maybe a busload or something from Bowling Green or something. I never did have that pleasure of being down there. Of course, every once in a while some of the boys would go to town and they’d get a little rowdy and get fussed at some. Some of them would get discharged if they got too rowdy. They wasn’t any trouble to discharge them if they get out of line. I never knew of any trouble. I never had any trouble with them.Lally: Was there much drinking that went on?
Hall: Not at $30 a month, no. Well, there was too. Quite a bit. Them old
boys...I have known them to come back...several of them lived back across the river and they...I have known them to bring a keg over there and put it up in the...above the locker, between the roof and the locker, in the ceiling...up above the ceiling and run a hose down into their locker.Lally: Oh, no. [laughing]
Hall: Keep them from finding it, you know.
Lally: Nobody ever found them?
Hall: They’d inspect your lockers...your wall lockers. Well, they’d inspect all
your lockers. We had foot lockers and wall lockers, too. There was enough of it, I guess. But that was moonshine. They’d bring in a jug or two. That was a bunch kind of stayed together on that. I never did drink any of that stuff. We’d drink a little...go out and get some maybe on payday. Horse Cave was wet then; we didn’t have to go to Bowling Green to get it. [To someone else:] She lives in Louisville.Unidentified female: Oh, she does?
Hall: I’ve got a son that’s a photographer on the Courier Journal up there...or
stepson...been there 19 years. Mama’s boy. [laughing] I’ll show you a picture after while in yonder.Lally: Okay. I was in...I’ve been living in Bowling Green since I’ve been at
Western, but I am from Louisville. I think I might change this over before it goes off on us.[End of Side 1]
Lally: This is the second side of my tape of the interview with Mr. Joe Hall in
Glasgow. Uh, how successful do you think the CCC was in relieving the effects of the Depression?Hall: It’s all right in that thing right there, Roosevelt’s Forest Army. It was
very successful. Can you imagine a country full of men with nothing to do of working age and out of school? Can’t afford to go to college. Can’t afford to do anything. What would you do with them? I would say, “Yes, it was very successful.”Lally: Do you think it helped the local economy around the Cave area...uh...get
out of...?Hall: There’s a whole lot of ways of looking at that. Moneywise, there wasn’t
that much money that they put back into the economy but then when you start supplying the camp with goods and all, somebody’s getting help. And, yeah, it kept these boys from maybe being out here stealing, tearing up, and shooting, and burning and all that sort of stuff. You know, that’s...kept a lot of them out of mischief maybe that would have been into mischief.Lally: What do you consider to be the greatest contribution of the CCC?
Hall: Well, giving these boys something to do. It just all goes back to that.
There’s boys in this town could have been president...wouldn’t...didn’t have a thing in the world to do. We had no telling how many went from here...a lot of them went way out West. They sent me just to Mammoth Cave, as far as I got from home.Lally: Did you want to go out farther away or did you...?
Hall: No, not really.
Lally: Do you think it made a difference in the military?
Hall: Oh, yes ma’am. Very much. These boys were already acclimated; they knew
sort of what to expect. That boot camp wasn’t anything new to them much except maybe put through their exercises more. I think that had a big effect on them. That’s where just about all of them were drafted. They were all draft age. That draft hit them right in the belly button and that’s where they all went. All of them that were physically able. Now there might have been some in there even though they were physically fit for the CCC, the Army...but at that time, I think they’s all physically fit. All they’d do is feel of you and see if you was warm and run you on through. [laughter--Lally]Lally: Were there any problems with the CCC that you can think of?
Hall: I didn’t have any. I thoroughly enjoyed it, thoroughly. Course I’d like to
have been somewhere making about $500 a month. I got...I’d say it was the most fun I ever had in my life...as far as having fun and feeling free. You had a place to stay and something to eat and a little spending money. I went to work on the WPA at 30 cents an hour when I got out of high school. It takes a while to get three or four dollars at that rate.Lally: What did you do when you got out of the CCC?
Hall: I was fortunate enough that the park service...went on civil service with
the park service as a...let’s see, what would it be called? I guess it was skilled labor. It’s classified as labor, maybe that would be the word for it cause it was in the civil service and [not clear] retirement. I went to work for the park service and stayed on over there right...doing the same thing I was doing... stayed on at the CC camp...rented a room up there and stayed up there for a long time.Lally: Upped your salary?
Hall: Ten...a thousand and eighty dollars a year. Yeah, it upped it.
Lally: Wow.
Hall: Ten eighty a year is what I made. They kind of go by what they call the
prevailing wage rate. What prevails in the community is sort of the way they set your pay. And at that time it was probably, I don’t know, maybe 70, 75 cents an hour or something.Lally: Did you go into the Army or...?
Hall: I went to work for the park service in...that would have been in ‘39. And
then in ‘42, late ‘42, the Army was right after me. I’d done got my notice. I worked with a boy over there, Gilbert Sanders, the one I was telling you about a while ago. Gilbert one day said, “Joe let’s...” He...they was after him, too. “Let’s go down to Bowling Green and see what the Navy has to offer.” Course, I didn’t know the Army...much more than know the Army from the Navy, far as knowing anything about them. So we went to Bowling Green down to the recruiting office. They told us about the Seabees.Lally: What are those?
Hall: That’s part of the Navy...construction battalions in the Navy. See...I got
it...and, uh, we signed some papers before we left there. We had to go to Louisville a little later, I don’t know, a couple of weeks or something. So we came on back. Then we went to Louisville whenever our designated time was for a physical. We started through and Gilbert had a little sunk-in place on his hand right there. Just...wasn’t...he worked all the time and wasn’t any opening or sore or anything, just a kind of sunk-in place. Well, they took that arm up there first thing and took his blood pressure. I was right behind him. [laughting] Before they put that thing on, they noticed that and asked about it. They called it some kind of paralysis. They said you might pick up something and drop it and not even...you better go on in and talk to the doctor right now and he did. And, shoot, they turned him down right now. And I was right behind him [laughter] and I went on through. And, uh...sworn in that day.Lally: And he didn’t have to go?
Hall: Nooo! He went back to Mammoth Cave. He was an awful good fellow though.
Thought lots of Gilbert. I reckon he’s still over. He and...I need to get over there and see him but I don’t do it.Lally: So how long...?
Hall: Then...that was in January. January the 3rd, I believe, when I went to
Louisville. They swore us in and, I don’t know, we had maybe a few days after that to get our business squared around and did. And then I stayed in the Navy then till October the 14th, 1945. In the Seabee. We went to...over to Virginia in January and it was colder than kraut. There’s my dates...11/25/42, that’s when we went to Bowling Green, to 10/27/45...27/45. Lacked about a month being three years. But anyway we...where was I? Then...went in there and we went over to...well, what’s the name...Roanoke. I guess...what’s the name of the thing over there in Virginia?Lally: Annapolis? No, that’s in Maryland.
Hall: No, that’s Maryland. Roanoke is it? Not Roanoke. Anyway, we went on down,
went to one place and then they sent us on down to another. And we got on a train there in Louisville and rode pullman to...oh, almost to Virginia Beach. Norfolk is what I’m trying to say. Rode a pullman, we went to Norfolk. They put us in a barracks one night about 8 o’clock and come back in a few minutes and said, “Well, pick your stuff up. We’re going on down to Camp Allen.” which is a little further down. Right close to Virginia Beach. Colder than blazes January the 4th, 3rd or 4th. Finally down to Camp Allen then we stayed there. We stayed there from January to the end of March. Took our boot training then we loaded up on the train and went to Gulfport, Mississippi. And we shipped out of Gulfport, Mississippi and went down to the Caribbean to Trinidad. They was putting in a naval, uh, base there on the island at Trinidad and after we stayed there then...little over a year, I think maybe 14 months or something. And then came back to the states over to, oh, at Rhode Island where the big Air Force base is on some kind of point...came back to Rhode Island anyway. And we were stationed there at Camp Endicott at, uh, in Rhode Island for a while. They tore the battalion all to pieces...just split it all up, reorganized it and who all your friends was all gone and some coming in. Very few of us stayed together. And I signed up in the spare parts school to, uh...the spare parts school is like you go back out and you set up a warehouse and you’re ordering parts, you’re supposed to know what you’re doing if you go through this school. That was down in Joliet, Illinois. That’s where I was on VE Day. And we stayed down there I think six weeks then we went on to Oxnard, California on the train. Fort [not clear] at Oxnard, California. We were there then...we were posted to be shipped out about three different times but we never did ship out again. It was right...getting close to VJ Day then...between VE and VJ Day. And we never did ship out again. So after VJ Day, why, we were sent in to discharge people...October the 14th, I believe...Unidentified female: 27th.
Hall: Hmm? Yeah, that’s what’s on my card...27th. I was discharged down at Long
Beach, California and then I hitchhiked home.Lally: Hitchhiked from California home?
Hall: Um-hmm.
Lally: That must have been quite an experience.
Hall: It wasn’t as much fun as I thought it was going to be.
Unidentified female: Back then though people would pick up servicemen, you know.
They...you didn’t have to be as careful as you’d have to be now about picking up people.Hall: You know, it was the oddest thing. When gas rationing was on,
everybody...they wouldn’t pass anybody on the highway. I mean, if there was any way in the world they could get you... And when they took that gas rationing off, you’d have to stand there sometimes...zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. It was a lot harder to get a ride after the gas rationing went off.Unidentified female: I think more people’s [not clear]
Hall: ...I know they quit it now. But that brought us up to where are we now?
Are we home yet? I’ve hitchhiked home...Unidentified female: You’re home.
Hall: Well, now what?
Lally: Is there anything else...?
Hall: Well, after I got...when I got home, I had, uh...took about a year and a
half ? Let’s see...I guess about a year in a GI training program in Louisville with the Marine Electric Company. And I was having some problems and I went back to Mammoth Cave and I stayed over there another year. And, uh, then I started taking every civil service examination I could find out about in Bowling Green. I had to go down there and take them, take them, take them. I ended up in the railway mail service in 1948. Went to Cincinnati and went to work and then rode the train from Louisville to Nashville...from Cincinnati to Nashville, wasn’t Louisville. It was Cincinnati to Nashville. And then November the 1st, 1950 I transferred to a rural route in Glasgow...mail run.Unidentified female: Back home.
Hall: Back home. And I stayed on that 27 years. So, all in all, with the civil
service I had 38 years and 9 months. I fell and hurt a shoulder and there wasn’t too much demand for one-armed mail carriers so I just retired May 8, I believe, ‘78. I’ve been retired ever since...since then...Betty and I can’t decide how we ever had time to...she worked all the time, too. But as busy as we stay now, I don’t know how either one of us ever had time to go out and do any public work. Keep watching the grand kids.Betty: Both of us working, I wonder sometimes how we did it.
Lally: Well, I appreciate your taking time out to talk with me today.
Hall: Get the picture of the kids in there and let her...show them...you want to
look at any of these?Lally: I’d like to. I would like to see those.
Hall: Well, you get into the daggone things they just go on and on.
Lally: Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about the CCC?
Hall: I don’t know of anything, and I’m afraid all of this has been told before.
Lally: Well, it’s nice to hear it from lots of different perspectives and you
have told me things that I haven’t heard so...Hall: It was a good program. There’s no question about that.
Lally: Well, then I guess I’ll turn this off. Thank you.
[End of Interview]
1:00