WILLIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed tape interview with Mr. Cecil Q.
Flowers, of Jackson Tennessee. The interview is conducted for the Kentucky Oral History Commission at Cumberland Falls State Park on October 6, 1990. Mr. Flowers I want to thank you for coming down here and giving me this interview today. Let’s start off by you telling me your full name, and where you were born, and when you were born.CECIL Q. FLOWERS: My full name is Cecil Q. Flowers, and I was born in Pickett
County, Tennessee, right on the border of Clinton County; in fact I went to school in Clinton County, Kentucky some.BERGE: Yeah.
FLOWERS: In fact the area where Sergeant York… BERGE: ( ) FLOWERS: In fact our
farm is just down the river from Sergeant York, and when the CCC started 1:00I was ten years old; and I never dreamed I would go in the CCC. Because we had a couple of river farms down there, we didn’t have any money but we had plenty to eat My father--we had bees, a molasses mill, an orchard, all the works.BERGE: Did your family know Cordell Hull?
FLOWERS: My Grandfather, John Taylor Flowers, and Cordell Hull’s father--was
William Hull--and one way William Hull made a living was to cut timber there on the Spring River where Dale Hollow is. And they would flood the rafts down the river in the spring on the flood and my Grandfather John Taylor Flowers worked with him on that.BERGE: Ok.
FLOWERS: And in fact, Cordell Hull—my family descended out of Virginia--and I
believe that when they left Virginia to come to this country they thought they were settling in Kentucky, because at that time Kentucky was part of Virginia and they got over the line in Tennessee, I am convinced of that. But… BERGE: Sort of by accident.FLOWERS: Yeah. Of course, Cordell Hull was descended from one of the Flowers
2:00that I am descended from. His mother was a Flowers. But getting back to… BERGE: What year were you born in?FLOWERS: 1923.
BERGE: 1923 FLOWERS: Yeah, 1923, and of course, the CCC started in thirty-three
and I was ten years old.BERGE: So you were really one of the last ones to be… FLOWERS: Last one’s, and
as I mentioned—my father, we owned some good land, but my father died in 1937. Well we had too much land to get any help from the government, but we didn’t have any money. My father probably left five hundred dollars in the bank; and we’d sell a new colt for seventy-five dollars or a few pigs and a few calves, but by 1940 I was sixteen years old and a freshman in high school. I did not have money to go to a foot ball game or… BERGE: Were you still going to Clinton schools?FLOWERS: No, now I was going to Pickett County school but grade school… BERGE:
You went to Clinton County schools… FLOWERS: Yeah, now my first school down there, I would walk and ride a horse behind my uncle 3:00who was a teacher. Then he married a lady who was a teacher from Clinton County. Well during the depression, be some years that he wouldn’t get a school in Pickett County and I would ride with her to where she was teaching. And I went to Clear Fork School, in Clinton County. In fact there was a lady that came in last night up here, and we got to talking and we were in third grade together.BERGE: Hah!
FLOWERS: In Clear Fork School in Clinton County, Kentucky, yeah.. But with no
money, I decided, you know, I was going to do something. And so I tried to join the army. I went to ( ) Tennessee, I made three trips, I didn’t weigh enough. So I did like the gentleman before me, I would buy bananas, eat everything I could eat, and I made three trips back and finally on the third trip I weighed one hundred and fifteen pounds, that was what you had to weigh to get in the army.BERGE: So you went in what day?
FLOWERS: Well, this was in—this was like in the fall of nineteen
4:00or spring of nineteen and forty.BERGE: And you went in the CCC then.
FLOWERS: Well I came back after I wasn’t going in the army. And the lady that
ran the Office in Piggy County Tennessee, I sat in class with her son and she knew my financial background, and I went down, sixteen years old and went in the CCC. They sent me to ( ) Tennessee, and I am probably the only boy here that paid to get in the CCC. They—we went to the Court House in ( ) Tennessee and there was an examiner like Mr. Hite said here before me, I think his name was Hite, we had to urinate in the bottle. When I urinate in the bottle these two old CCC first aid boys was testing they came back and said you have too much sugar, but give us fifty cent and we will pass you. (laughter) So I gave them fifty cent… BERGE: I’ve never heard of that. (laughing) FLOWERS: So I gave them fifty cent and went right through there. So they put us on a truck and shipped us up to Morgan County, down south of Oneida. And we were in a State Forest Camp 1463 and we built fire towers, roads and 5:00had a rock quarry there and of course, everybody hated that rock quarry.BERGE: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was talking to some of these yesterday here and when
they got transferred from one place to Central City rock quarry they quit. (laughs) FLOWERS: But the thing that really bothered me was that I had to quit high school. And so when I got to ( )burg, I got on a civilian crew with Mr. Lewis. He had worked in a candy factory in Chattanooga and I—see we were doing all the surveying and ( ) now.BERGE: Sure.
FLOWERS: All in that area.
BERGE: Did you know what you were doing?
FLOWERS: No. We didn’t know what we was doing see and I never will forget Mr.
Lewis, great foreman to work for, loved to work for him. But we’d have these sandwiches to eat out in the road you know, and he called Jello nervous pudding. And to this day I call Jello nervous pudding. And he had a word for mayonnaise, do you know what that was?BERGE: Huh-huh.
FLOWERS: Wedding’ sauce. (laughter) So…
6:00BERGE: Is that right? Where was he from?FLOWERS: Chattanooga. You know Fetchner… BERGE: He worked in a candy factory?
FLOWERS: Yeah, before the CCC.
BERGE: Like Brock?
FLOWERS: I think it was, I think it was Brock. You know Fetchner the head of
CCC, the Director of CCC he was from Chattanooga, he was a native of Chattanooga.BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.
FLOWERS: Anyway we wound up at Wattburg and of course, I wound up on the tail
end of everything, you know, the camps had started closing. And of course, most of these camps were isolated area and you had electricity and you had the little motor to generate the electricity, but that was only enough electricity for the barracks.BERGE: Hum-hum.
FLOWERS: Now we had a—all these CCC camps had a heck of a woodworking shop. They
had the lathes and they had the saws and all this.BERGE: Yeah. Now this is a later thing, in the beginning they didn’t.
FLOWERS: Yeah, the education program really started about 1935, you know they
started doing that. But in this whole camp area at Wattburg Tennessee they had a Model A engine sitting outside the barracks 7:00and had belts around it. And it would pull all the wood working equipment cause you could make cedar chests, you could make chairs, you could make anything you wanted to. But I was there when they activated Tennessee National Guard and Milton Acuff was Educational Director. Now at the CCC camps you had had three officers; you had a captain and his junior officer then you had an educational guide, they all wore the CCC Army uniforms… BERGE: Hum-hum.FLOWERS: And Milton Acuff, was the Educational Advisor, well he--when they
activated the Tennessee National Guard--he was one of the high officers there. And before he had built up his unit he went around to all the CCC ( ) got the cooks, the bus drivers… BERGE: Yeah, he knew exactly what he was after.FLOWERS: Yeah. Yeah, you know a bulldozer—you take a bulldozer is a first cousin
to a tank and he just transferred over to a tank. That’s the way he got a lot of these people and the camp closed there in 1941. And I was shipped over here, not too far from here, Pickett State Park.BERGE: Yeah, oh, yeah over there by McCreary County.
FLOWERS: Yeah, it was two camps there,
8:00447 and 1471 and in the beginning--I don’t know about Kentucky--but in Tennessee, in the beginning--‘course the country was divided up like they are in four quarters--and Tennessee was in a fourth quarter District C. And, but, the first camps came into east Tennessee and even some in west Tennessee like 1208, or second corps camps, see, from New York and New Jersey and they would come in there and set these camps up and move on out west and then the local boys would come in.BERGE: Huh-huh.
FLOWERS: And the first camp that came into Pickett State Park was 1212 or 1208
and they were all Italian boys.BERGE: From New York?
FLOWERS: From New York. It was shock when they came into that, I mean it was
back woods fifty years ago now.BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.
FLOWERS: Well, because of the back woods and the isolation—it was so
isolated—they shipped those boys out. And those boys went to Walla Walla Washington 9:00and then they brought the local boys in and 447 stayed there until 1938. And then they went to Chadwick Georgia, well when I came in there it was 1471. And 1471 was started in ( ) Tennessee moved to Pickett State Park in 1934. They built that park, by the way Pickett State Park was the first park in Tennessee built by the Civilian Conservation Corps.BERGE: Yeah, they built the whole park didn’t they?
FLOWERS: Yeah, the whole park, the whole thing. Two camps there built there.
After two weeks, I was on a civilian crew with a Clement. And he was a descendent from the Samuel M. Clements’s family you know that’s where Mark Twain moved from.BERGE: Yeah.
FLOWERS: And if you will look at your history Mark Twain was conceived in
Jamestown Tennessee and born in Missouri.BERGE: Ah, yeah.
FLOWERS: Well, you see his daddy, in Jamestown was Tennessee ( ) county. Mark
Twain’s father had a—was a County Clerk or Trustee or something down there. And see they own land down there till the thirties.BERGE: ( ) FLOWERS: ( ) I’m going to tell you a story about him in a minute. I
worked with him in the CCC camp. 10:00Ah, but, we closed that camp in July 1941 and, of course, all the camps started closing… BERGE: ( ) FLOWERS: Montgomery Bell was the old Crossville Tennessee camp, it was 3464 and that cadre had went out of 1471 over at Jamestown, twenty men in 1934-35. And see they helped build those homesteads. Now that part in Cumberland Falls—not Cumberland Falls—Cumberland Mountain State Park was built for those people that lived in their homesteads. That is what it was started for and in 1939 Sergeant York was Project Superintendent. See that was a national park then, and he was the superintendent of those that worked in the field. See he stayed there until they started filming the movie, Sergeant York, then he left, he was consultant on it.BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. Did he actually work for the CCC?
FLOWERS: Yeah he was Project Superintendent. In fact, you know they have a
little park 11:00near Sergeant York’s home where the old grist mill is now? His son is the Park Superintendent of that little park. In fact, his son got to go back to France a couple of years ago, when all these veterans went back, his son went back to France. But now this younger son got his mother, Gracie, to turn the York home over to the state of Tennessee, so they are going to make a museum out of that. When they were cleaning out the York home they found his old CCC uniform.BERGE: Ah.
FLOWERS: Yeah, so they got that there.
BERGE: That’s great.
FLOWERS: And, ah… BERGE: I didn’t realize that he was in the CCC.
FLOWERS: Well, you know he was a Project Superintendent, now… BERGE: ( ) he
worked for… FLOWERS: They had a program at CCC called LEM Men, have you ever heard of that?BERGE: No.
FLOWERS: Well, that’s one reason this man got to stay and the way in the CCC was
Assistant Leader and Leader. 12:00Assistant Leader made thirty-six and the Leader got forty-five. Well, I became Leader, there is a limit, a two year enlistment you see six months at a time, but when… BERGE: But they didn’t want to lose those guys… FLOWERS: Yeah, they wanted to keep them in. But another thing, I got a friend in Jackson Tennessee just got out of Architect School, and company 499 was soil conservation camp in Jackson Tennessee. And they decided ( ) didn’t have an architect so Mr. Harrison, who just got out of architect college in Arkansas, came back and no work. So they enrolled him as a Local Experienced Man—LEM.BERGE: Yeah.
FLOWERS: So they enrolled him… BERGE: Oh, yeah I have heard of that.
FLOWERS: Yeah ( ), see this lady that I met up here, that she and I went to the
same school in Clear Fork? She said her daddy was born in 1890. I said, “he couldn’t have been in the CCC, he was too old.” And I says, “well he had some kind of trade.” I said, 13:00“ they had a program called LEM, Local Experienced Men and they were carpenters or brick masons or something like that.” She said, “he was a carpenter.” I said, “that was the reason he got in he was a carpenter.” BERGE: They must have had some people who really knew how to quarry stone.FLOWERS: You know you run into people this day, you know they want to know what
we put in the concrete. You can’t burst the concrete we mixed fifty years ago.BERGE: No, Huh-huh.
FLOWERS: And of course you can tell the CCC work is so ( ). You know a dollar a
day, you know you could do that. And I talked to the people in Nashville in the Archives, down there that work in the buildings of the State Park System, they say that the blueprints that they left on file is just out of this world.BERGE: Yeah. Huh-huh. It is amazing stuff. You were—when you were in you were
about the youngest guy too, weren’t you?FLOWERS: Yeah, I was the youngest guy and I spent all my time—I’ve always been
an achiever--and I spent all my time 14:00in the Day Room. You know, I mean I taught myself to type, I taught myself to run the mimeograph machine, when the old camp closed in Morgan County I was the only guy left who could run the mimeograph machine. And I would stay over there and read every magazine I could get and when I went to Montgomery Bell, a guy by the name of Snow was ( ). And he--man they put me--when I first got to Montgomery Bell they put me on digging sod and raking rock on the road—I hated that, I hated it. I wanted something else. So I had spent all this time in that other camp, I had spent all that time in the Day Room, and I mean I didn’t go out and drink like the others did. You know, most of them went out and had a good time, I didn’t. I mean I was in there with my head in a book.BERGE: You were a little young, too.
FLOWERS: Yeah, I was a little young. Some of them were pretty rough and—but—Snow
left and I was transferred over to Assistant Education Supervisor. I had charge of the wood-working shop, I had charge of the library… BERGE: Did you know many people who couldn’t read and write?FLOWERS: Yeah, that is what I am leading u to now. In that program
15:00that we had there at Montgomery Bell, we had classes, one through the sixth grade. Now the WPA would send teachers in and Mr. Jenkins the ( ) man would come in there and help classes one through sixth grade. And I kept a roster on all that and kept the records and then we would also have woodworking classes, we would have automobile classes, we had typing classes and telephone classes. And I kept a roster on all those classes and see I was already Assistant ( ) Advisor that paid me six dollars extra a month because I was assistant leader. Well, the County Board of Education of the county I was located in paid me sixteen dollars a month for keeping all the records.BERGE: You were doing pretty good.
FLOWERS: Yeah, then the CCC camps too you know, had a program where you sent
these films. You had a movie every week, usually westerns. If the weather was bad we would show it in the Day Room and if it wasn’t we had seats outside on the hill. The camp paid me five dollars a month for that. I was making a lot of money. And my buddy ran the Canteen and he went up to Nashville 16:00to go to welding school. And my Educational Advisor the officer above me, I told Mr. Whipple, I said, “I want to ( ) I want to go to that welding school.” He said, “ ah, you’d waste your money, don’t do it.” So I took his advice and didn’t go. Holland Davis went to the welding school came back and went to Glenn ( ) and sent me an application. I filled the application out, got my old CCC foot locker got on a Greyhound Bus—I didn’t know you could check it in—I carried it all the way. (laughter) Got to Baltimore, went up there and got a rooming house on Fulton Avenue, these old boys working at the shipyard making twice what they were making at ( ) Martin and I went down to the shipyard and worked with some boys from Pennsylvania… BERGE: Where was this Newport News?FLOWERS: No, at Baltimore ( ) BERGE: Oh, Baltimore, yes Baltimore.
FLOWERS: And the first job I had was with the Federal Shipbuilding Company. And
all it was, was 17:00filling oxygen bottles. Didn’t like it stayed there, oh about a week and they put me on night ( ). I just quit, I mean I quit. I probably didn’t have a hundred dollars in my pocket.BERGE: Huh-hum.
FLOWERS: Went down to ( ) and I never will forget these people from the company
got up on a box about two foot high and pointed—hired about six people that morning--I want you, you, you and you. And I always looked young for my age and this old boy jumps up in front of me and this guy says, “me?” And he says, “no I want that kid.” Honest to God. We went in there and he said, “what can you do?” I said, “I want to go to your welding school.” I knew they had a welding school. They sent me to their welding school and paid me. See.BERGE: Huh-huh.
FLOWERS: Then I went out on these Liberty Ships making—I mean I was making good
money for an eighteen year old kid. At that time I was making, at that time about one hundred twenty-five dollars a week, that was a lot of money. Old Holland Davis was out at the CCC, where he paid to go to welding school in Nashville, he got ( ) and I was making all this money. He quit, well he came down and hired on to the same company I was working for and they sent him to the same welding school. So ( ) he wasted his money. (laughs) But I always ( ) around machines 18:00and the printing, I always loved printing.BERGE: Huh-huh.
FLOWERS: But when Montgomery Bell popped I went to a little church, a little
church one Sunday, and I am not lying to you --there are beautiful women today—but I met the most beautiful girl in that county and I am not lying she was a beauty. And she and I dated and then, of course, I went to Baltimore, then I could have got further in Baltimore ‘cause I put in… BERGE: Depends on what you did.FLOWERS: Because of what I did. And I went over to the Draft Board and I got a
card from the Draft Board telling me to come over to the Draft Board. I knew what it was, it was a deferment. But I looked at that card and said I am not going. I am going home and go in the army. So Mr. Hope was from West Virginia he was my welding partner. I went down one morning and started to work and about nine or ten o’clock I rolled up my line and went up and cried, I thought so much of it, 19:00I went up and cried. I said I am going home to Tennessee and go in the army with my buddies. Well, I went home to Tennessee and then next call I was in it. I went in with the boys I went to school with. And of course, I quit and went in the CCC camp—now I’ll show you what the CCC experience did—I wanted to go in the Army Air corps, and my IQ was high enough that I got in the Army Air Corps. And some of those old boys that stayed there in high school wound up in the infantry. Now I went in the Army Air Corps, and stayed in the Army Air Corps for three years. And my wife followed me to Washington and we got married in the state of Washington, I was on B-24’s.BERGE: Whereabouts in Washington?
FLOWERS: Walla Walla.
BERGE: Walla Walla. ( ) the CCC’s there.
FLOWERS: And I didn’t know this till about three years ago. The air base was on
the same location the old CCC camp was.BERGE: Is that right?
FLOWERS: That’s right. But I stayed in the Army—I was on B-24’s and I was in
there for three years and made Staff Sergeant 20:00and I was on the ground crew. But I was on the crew that ( ) all over the United States repairing B-24’s ( ). When I came home my wife and I piled everything we owned-she’d saved my money—her money—the allotment—we had a little forty Chevrolet business coup—and this is honest, I’m telling you the truth—we piled everything we owned in that little car… BERGE: ( ) FLOWERS: Yeah. Huh-huh. And we headed north from town to town to find a job in a newspaper.BERGE: Huh-huh.
FLOWERS: We’d go through Bowling Green, we stopped in Louisville, we stopped in
the towns in Indiana. I got to Indianapolis and went down to the Indianapolis Star and the guy said, “we got two boys Murphy and Wagner, from Marion Indiana going to come down and go to work for us Monday,” He said, “ you go up and see Mr. Lewis.” And I went up and Mr. Lewis hired me as an apprentice. And I guess I worked there—oh, I worked there seven years. But I was there about two or three years and they all called me Tennessee. 21:00I was the southern boy in the shop. One day somebody told me… BERGE: Did you type better or what?FLOWERS: No, I was pressman.
BERGE: Oh, a pressman.
FLOWERS: And somebody told somebody to go down and–no, somebody came in the
pressroom and says, “you meet Cecil Flowers,” and I had worked with this guy for about a year and he didn’t know my name, ‘cause everybody called me Tennessee, see.But I stayed there long enough to get me some experience.
BERGE: And learn the business.
FLOWERS: Learn the business and then the next five years of my life, after I
left Indiana, I took five years—I had a goal—I worked for the National Banner, for the Birmingham News, I worked for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and I worked for the Dallas Times Herald.BERGE: You worked for some good papers didn’t you?
FLOWERS: Yeah, I sure did. And when I felt like I had the experience I came back
to Memphis; and Jackson Tennessee was building a new plant. And I went ( ) put in all the equipment and stayed there and ran the pressroom. Then 22:00I went from the pressroom of production manager, and of course, I had finished my high school. And when I was working in Memphis I went to Memphis State and I—in the daytime I was actually—I was working nights, but I got two years of college. And I went to the Jackson Sun and went up through the ranks from Pressroom Superintendent to Production Manager to Director of Operations. But I was the only manager there that didn’t have a college education. And I was Senior Manager, I was number two man and retired from the Gannett Company as Vice President BERGE: Oh.FLOWERS: And if I hadn’t got the discipline and the training the CCC, said , hey
you can be something, you know. And, ah… BERGE: That was sort of a pivotal move in your life wasn’t it, to get in the CCC?FLOWERS: Yeah. Yeah.
BERGE: Did you meet a lot of people like that who used them as a stepping stone
to really good things?FLOWERS: Yeah, I have a really good friend and I wish you could interview him.
He is from—he came over from Czechoslovakia, his parents did. He lives in the coal fields 23:00of Illinois, lived in a shot-gun house, had nothing’, didn’t have anything. He went in the CC’s and….BERGE: Was he born in Czechoslovakia?
FLOWERS: No, he was born here.
BERGE: Ok.
FLOWERS: He went in the CCC and he advanced up—he was a high school graduate—he
advanced up and became a surveyor.BERGE: Huh-hum.
FLOWERS: And he went into Cadets in World War II and he had a plane crash in the
Cadets. And he could have—he could have set the war out—didn’t have to go—a little guy, really small guy. He went down and told them he said, “I am going to serve some way in this man’s army.” So they let him stay in the Army Air Corps and he went to Officer’s Candidate School and he went through every rank and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. But they used him almost extensively in Czechoslovakia in Air Intelligence ‘cause he could speak the language. In fact, he and his wife and my wife and I, we 24:00planned to go this year with a group and it didn’t pan out and I –see I just went to a reunion down at Pigeon Forge.BERGE: Huh-huh. Why did you get in this organization? In the Association of the CCC?
FLOWERS: Well I, doing—I was on Acquisition—see, I was with the Jackson Sun, but
I was with the ( ) Tribune in Des Moines Iowa, they owned the paper. And 1974-1978 I did my job in Jackson Tennessee, but I was on the Acquisition team, I was on the Corporate staff in Des Moines, even though I was based in Jackson Tennessee. And I travel all over the country trying to buy newspapers and I was on my way to Chicago and I stopped in Edingham, Washington and I, being a newspaper man, I gotta have a newspaper every night. And I picked up this newspaper and in it was a story about Andy Comances, the one I just talked about in Champaign Illinois. Well, I was in Champaign trying to buy that newspaper--but 25:00I couldn’t tell Andy--but I had his name , so I just called information and got his phone number. Went out to his house and he told me about this organization and that’s when I joined. And Andy went to the first reunion in Sacramento back in 1977. And the television was interviewing Andy at this first reunion in California—Sacramento and some of those boys in Illinois, he had been in camp with saw him on television and called him, see?BERGE: Huh-huh.
FLOWERS: But Andy got me interested in it and I went to the first convention in
Little Rock. I didn’t dream I would get in this thing. And I have organized the first state-wide CCC reunion with a friend of mine, he was in radio and I was in newspapers. We organized the first state reunion with—I don’t know if you remember or not, but Tennessee had a program under Lamarr Alexander, called Homecoming ’86-- that was when we had the first reunion. We had five hundred boys up there.BERGE: Were you in that thing up in Knoxville last week?
FLOWERS: I organized that thing.
BERGE: Yeah?
FLOWERS: Huh-huh.
BERGE: You were down there.
FLOWERS: Yeah, my wife and I have been working on that for a year. And—but,
26:00ah—we had the first reunion down there and all of this. I got a friend in Jackson Tennessee that is a State Senator and I called old Joe Nichols, one night and I said, “Joe, I need some money to put up some markers for what we did in Tennessee in the State Park, and we need to mention that.” He said, “Cece, how much money do you need?” I said, “I don’t know but let me think.” And I called him back and I said, “we are going to need fifty thousand dollars.” He said, “well, write me a letter.” BERGE: Come in. Here let me get that—I’ll get it.UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: (mumbles) (door squeaks) BERGE: Oh, yeah, it’d be at eleven
o’clock come on in. Yeah, thank you Leroy.UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well Mr. Flowers, good to see you.
BERGE: Just have a seat Mr. Galt, I’ll get you next.
27:00UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Ok. go ahead.FLOWERS: But I wrote a letter to ( ) and I wrote every other legislator in the
State House in Nashville and sent them a copy of this letter.BERGE: Huh-huh.
FLOWERS: And I got one letter back from--oh, gosh—anyway he is a druggist in
Ripy, Tennessee. And he said, “you know it is about time the CCC got some recognition,” he said, “I am behind you and I will do anything I can to help you.” So I called him and he said, “now Joe Lewis is lukewarm on this thing,” he says, “you get to me and I’ll run with you.” So I called Joe, Joe Nichols and I said, “you going to get the ( )?” He said, “yeah I’m going to get it.” So they got it and went to the appropriations and all that. And the gentleman from Ripy called me--I can’t think f his name—he says, “Cecil, they knocked that out of the budget, but before I leave Nashville Tennessee you’ll have it.” And before he left Nashville Tennessee I had the fifty thousand dollars. Now we have put up—if you ever go down to Norris Dam or any of those—go and look. We put up a beautiful, three foot wide, six inches thick, seven foot high granite marker and it 28:00has got a special CCC… BERGE: Oh, I saw a picture of one yesterday.FLOWERS: Ok. well that’s it. It cost us two thousand six hundred and fifty
dollars and comes out of Oklahoma. A local monument place can’t touch it for that, ‘cause I’ve been through that. And--but we got them up in seventeen state parks. I’ve got enough money left to put them up in a couple more parks. And we went down—there is another one in east Tennessee, where the old fish hatchery and game preserve use to be—we are going to put one--Buffalo Springs. But I met with the State Architect in Nashville Tennessee and we are going to get one on the Capitol grounds. We just have to go through all this paper work—but we are going to get one on the Capitol grounds in Nashville honoring all seventy-seven camps that were in Tennessee.BERGE: Oh., there were seventy-seven camps in Tennessee?
FLOWERS: Yeah. But now you gotta remember, not at one time.
BERGE: Yeah, I know, but there were seventy-seven of them.
FLOWERS: But if you read you know what you see… BERGE: Like the same group would
be in four or five of them.FLOWERS: Yeah. Well, you know this camp would close and move over here.
BERGE: Yeah. Yeah, I know that. When they finished the job.
FLOWERS: Most places you’ll read that during the life of the CCC’s there were twenty-seven
29:00hundred camps, not at one time, but over the period of ten years there was forty-five hundred different camps. See, but like I was telling you these second ( ) camps like 1208 would come in. Well 1208 would come in and become 447.BERGE: Yeah.
FLOWERS: See it was two different camps.
BERGE: Yeah. Huh-huh. Well I sure want to thank you Mr. Flowers for your vast—I
tell you I would like to talk with you longer, but I’ve got to run through two or three more. Before you leave let me turn this off and get your… END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE END OF INTERVIEW 30:00