Oral History Interview with George C. Dalton

WILLIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed taped interview with Mr. George C. Dalton of Ocala Florida. The interview was conducted at Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky by William C. Berge for the Kentucky Oral History Commission. The interview was conducted on October 6, 1990 at Eleven Fifteen A. M. Mr. Dalton, I want to thank you for coming down here, and letting me interview you. And I would like you to start off by telling me your name—your full name—and where you born, and when you were born, and all that sort of thing.

GEORGE C. DALTON: Well, my full name is George Calder Dalton, I was born in Webster County, Kentucky in nineteen and fifteen.

BERGE: Huh-huh. What was the nearest town? What was the county seat of Webster County? 1:00DALTON: Webster County seat is Dixon, and I was born near Clay. In fact, I was born on the almost—on the border line with Webster and Union County.

BERGE: Did you ever hear of Francis, Kentucky?

DALTON: No, I don’t know— BERGE: That was down near Crittenden ( ).

DALTON: Oh, well, I was close to it then, because Crittenden is the next county over. And of course, so—let’s see now, I was born there and… BERGE: What year?

DALTON: Nineteen fifteen and when I graduated from high school in nineteen and thirty-four I went into the three C’s and went to Mammoth Cave.

BERGE: Where did you finish high school?

DALTON: Clay Kentucky in nineteen and thirty-four.

BERGE: And where did you go to elementary school?

DALTON: Huh at Clay they … BERGE: At Clay?

DALTON: Well part of it at ( ) Craw. My earlier days I rode the school bus at that time was a two horse wagon, with a board down either side for a seat.

BERGE: Huh-Huh. 2:00DALTON: And had steps on the back.

BERGE: Let me ask you something.

DALTON: Hum-hum.

BERGE: What was your father’s name?

DALTON: George Henry.

BERGE: Where was he from?

DALTON: Well, believe it or not in South America. That is South America Illinois.

BERGE: Oh, yeah? (laughter) DALTON: In writing that book, was the first time I found out about it. I found out that he was born in South America and I started searching for it and there was no ( ) over there. It was incorporated in eighteen fifty something, and they took the post office away in nineteen ten; but then, all there is there now is a little church and a grave yard. But then, he was born there, but then my great, great grandfather was in the Revolution in a Pennsylvania unit a sergeant; his name was George too, 3:00and he was granted a hundred acres of land in Allen County Kentucky. So that’s where, you might say, the biggest part of the Dalton’s, that I know of, started from. There are thousands of them came from him. They are spread all over the … BERGE: I was raised in a town in Pennsylvania named Dalton.

DALTON: Yeah. I have had … BERGE: Dalton Pennsylvania.

DALTON: I have got a write up I there about Dalton. I think the thirteen states … BERGE: Georgia and Pennsylvania … DALTON: Well, there is more than that maybe just a little place they call Dalton Gap or something like that.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DALTON: And of course, there are Dalton places all over the world. Of course, England the Dalton huh—what do you call them—( ) mean counties or … BERGE: Yeah. Shires. Tell me this what was your mother’s name?

DALTON: She was a Hinton, 4:00H i n t o n … BERGE: Huh-huh.

DALTON: She was born right on the … BERGE: What was her first name?

DALTON: Kitty, K i t t y.

BERGE: Was that her name or did they just call her that?

DALTON: Well, the ..

BERGE: It wasn’t Katharine … DALTON: Only records that I could find that was her name.

BERGE: Kitty, Kitty Hinton.

DALTON: Yeah.

BERGE: Where was she from?

DALTON: She was right from Tennessee, right from that area and where her father and mother were from originally, I don’t know. I can’t trace them I haven’t ( ). All I did on this was the Dalton’s, although I have a little history of them there in the book and—but that is all I can go back. Now my father was born in 1856, he was fifty-five years old when I was born. And in our family there was ten children nine of them were girls. (laughter). I was the ninth one born.

BERGE: You had a lot of baby sitters.

DALTON: Yeah. Well … BERGE: A lot of mothers didn’t you?

DALTON: As I say they were all jealous 5:00and envious of me because I was the only one of the group that didn’t have to wear hand-me-downs. But I ( ) and in bloomers.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. (laughter) They took care of you though—those sisters didn’t they?

DALTON: Yeah. Now you want me to tell you more about my history or the CC’s?

BERGE: Well, today we have some more coming in, so we had better at least start on the CC’s so I can get those. Tell me this, you finished high school in thirty-four, and how soon did you go in the three C’s?

DALTON: Before I graduated. Ah, two weeks before I graduated I got a call and they asked me if I wanted to go in the three C’s. I left and I didn’t go to the exercises, they gave me my diploma.

BERGE: Diploma, yeah. Did a lot of boys go in like that? How did you get in?

DALTON: Well, my father died years before, it was my mother and sister and I living together on practically nothing. The bank went broke and everything, so we were just eking 6:00it out. My father died on the seventeenth birthday. I would have quit school then but I couldn’t get a job.

BERGE: Sure.

DALTON: And they were depending on me to play football so people did—helped out until I got through high school.

BERGE: Yeah.

DALTON: But then, when I was getting out of high school I didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do. So … BERGE: That five dollars a week that they sent home to your mother was big thing for her wasn’t it?

DALTON: Twenty-five, her and my sister live on that until my sister completed high school on that.

BERGE: On your CCC money?

DALTON: Well, I had five dollars, well I became assistant leader … (knock on the door)) BERGE: (loudly) Come in. Let me go and get him. That’s ok. And you had—so you went in literally immediately on –oh, thanks 7:00a lot—ok—bye-bye.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Bye-bye.

BERGE: So you had—it just worked out perfectly for you graduating like that.

DALTON: That’s right. If you read—I will leave the book with you if you would care to have it.

BERGE: Oh, I’d love to have it.

DALTON: And that is the last of the ones I have with me, I got a few more ( ) and I’ll autograph it and give it to you.

BERGE: I think it is a great thing to do it for yourself too … DALTON: And … BERGE: Let me ask you this. Before we—so you got in just immediately on getting out of high school; and it was a lucky thing for you that you got to finish high school in the first place. Where did they send you—when you—when you—where did you sign up?

DALTON: Owensboro.

BERGE: Ok.

DALTON: I had to go—I don’t know, I guess it was sixty or seventy miles to Owensboro 8:00to register.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DALTON: And then from Owensboro we were all loaded on the train and went to Fort Knox.

BERGE: Who told you about it?

DALTON: It was just one of the citizens of Clay, I mean that knew that I … BERGE: Knew that you needed it.

DALTON: I don’t know maybe—I maybe, I may have even been on relief then, I don’t know. I mean I just… BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. They knew you needed it.

DALTON: They knew I needed it.

BERGE: So you went to Owensboro—you went there and signed up. Did you go back home or did they send you right to the CC’s?

DALTON: Went to the three C’s.

BERGE: So where did you go after Owensboro?

DALTON: Owensboro? I went to Fort Knox, and spent two weeks there.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

DALTON: With the army training and then it was a little more … BERGE: Were you kind of frightened by this?

DALTON: Ah, no I was looking forward to it… BERGE: Being from a little town and all?

DALTON: A little town, and there had been one other boy going in the first bunch that--and he got to go to California.

BERGE: Oooh.

DALTON: And I felt bad I was going to ( ).

BERGE: (laughs).

DALTON: But then, I didn’t even get out of Kentucky. Then I did get a hundred miles 9:00away, that was quite a ways and it was quite something.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. ( ) Montana or some place like that.

DALTON: And then they sent us to Mammoth Cave, and I thought, well, I am going to be in the cave from now on, but that was--we were working outside.

BERGE: So you went to Mammoth Cave?

DALTON: Yes. Huh-huh.

BERGE: Ok. Now, when you went to Mammoth Cave, what job did you have right off?

DALTON: The first thing was, well, what I did all the time I was there; was working in the woods. You know there were forty thousand acres of the park that the government had just acquired, and there were a lot of dead trees in there causing fires. And our group went in there, and every dead tree that we could find, we cut it and we cut it in pieces small enough 10:00to lay flat on the ground, where the flames wouldn’t go under it and spread. When it hit that log it stopped. And so … BERGE: So this was making firebreaks then?

DALTON: That’s right. And the limbs, we had another group that went in there then with an axe, and they would chop those limbs in little piece, and lay them flat on the ground.

BERGE: Huh-hum.

DALTON: And that stopped the fires, right there. Then … BERGE: Did you make trails or anything?

DALTON: Oh, yeah, there were roads built, I didn’t work on this, but then another group did. They—rock quarries—they used dynamite to create these rocks you know and broke them up with the sledge hammers, enough to put them in a crusher and crush them, and then they would take them out on the roads and spread the rock.

BERGER: Hum-hum.

DALTON: And in Mammoth Cave in the National Park there were four CCC camps and 11:00there was one … BERGE: Four camps.

DALTON: Four camps.

BERGE: Which one were you in?

DALTON: I was in Camp Number Two, Number 543 it was right at the entrance to the ah, new entrance.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DALTON: At the cave. So you talked to another guy this morning earlier that was in the same place that I was in.

BERGE: Yeah. Williams, Roy Williams. Yeah. Let me ask you something’ about that. A man that I—who I know who studies these Kentucky Parks, said that he was talking to somebody who remembers them destroying or tearing down the buildings and—down at Mammoth Cave, 12:00do you remember that?

DALTON: Yes, I do.

BERGE: Tell me about that.

DALTON: Well, see the government bought up all the farms and everything and consolidated—made it into a national park. After they bought the land and the people moved out then they did away with the buildings, because they wanted it to be a natural. That the only building on there were our camps and the two hotels. So that—they did away with the … BERGE: With the buildings.

DALTON: Yeah. The houses there.

BERGE: And you actually remember that.

DALTON: I do. I remember it. It was after the government bought the land and moved the people out, and found homes for them, and paid them for the land. And then they tore the buildings down. And incidentally, I 13:00just happened to see a few of them before they were torn down, that was in 1934, I remember seeing one where the kitchen was papered with old newspapers of nineteen and fifteen.

BERGE: Huh-huh. Nineteen fifteen.

DALTON: That was the paper, instead of wall paper they just had left over newspapers on the wall.

BERGE: That was kind of interesting for you wasn’t it?

DALTON: Yes, it was. If I hadda known what I was going to do—write the history and everything--I would have grabbed those newspapers, scraped them off the wall—but then being a young lad I wasn’t interested then.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

DALTON: So I left the three Cs then in thirty-six. The little town that I lived in, Clay, there was a grocery there that the owner wanted me to come back and help him run it.

BERGE: So you quit really 14:00because of that.

DALTON: I quit to go to work. But then I got down there, I found out I was making less money than I was in the three C’s, so then I started circulating around to find a better job.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DALTON: I went to Cincinnati and I started in a heat treating plant in 1937, January of 1937, and from there I went to Wright Aeronautical and to Fischer Body, a division of General Motors.

BERGE: Where-a-bouts in Fischer Body?

DALTON: Hamilton Ohio.

BERGE: Ok.

DALTON: Twenty-six years there.

BERGE: Oh.

DALTON: So, I was in the Tool and Dye business.

BERGE: Where were you with Wright, in Dayton?

DALTON: Wright, was in Lockland.

BERGE: Oh, in Lockland.

DALTON: Yes, that’s right in Lockland, it was a Division of—same as Cincinnati I mean it was a different town, but you didn’t know when you got out there.

BERGE: Yeah, huh-huh.

DALTON: Yeah, I spent, I was there before they started that—was an odd thing I was working—I couldn’t 15:00get over to put an application in, but one of the fellas I knew worked the night shift and he went over to apply for a job and he came back and handed me this application. And he had never got out of the fifth grade, and he didn’t know how to fill it out. So he gave it to me and I filled it out and mailed it in. And they sent me a telegram and from there I went to Paterson New Jersey, and for the training until the building was completed.

BERGE: Hum-hum. And so you didn’t go in the military during World War II?

DALTON: No.

BERGE: You stayed right there in Cincinnati and worked?

DALTON: I couldn’t get in even—at times I wanted to and couldn’t.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

DALTON: Because I didn’t like to be accused of … BERGE: Oh, no.

DALTON: But you know, I am glad I stayed out, because I wouldn’t have done any better. 16:00BERGE: Well, when you left—what year did you retire from the Fischer Body?

DALTON: Well, you will have to go back, I mean count fifteen years back. When was that? Seventy-six, I guess. I went on a semi … BERGE: Where did you work in Fischer Body? Hamilton you said?

DALTON: Hamilton. Huh-huh.

BERGE: There was a Fischer Body over in Norwood too, wasn’t there?

DALTON: Yes, Norwood assembled the body. What we did up there was—that was mostly a design making shop, where we made the dyes that stamped the panels out. Then we shipped the panels to the assembly plant.

BERGE: Ok.

DALTON: There was no assembling done there. That would have been the tool and dye department there for twenty-six years.

BERGE: That, ah, then what did you do after you retired?

DALTON: I went to—I went to Ocala Florida.

BERGE: Now, why did you go to Ocala? 17:00DALTON: Well, as soon as I retired, the same year.

BERGE: No, why?

DALTON: Why, well, I had—my wife at the time had a brother there— BERGE: Ok.

DALTON: …who had become—something hit him and he became practically paralyzed. And he went down there and built him a swimming pool and every thing. We went down to see him, ah, liked it real well, the house next door was for sale. He wanted us to move down so there would be family together there. We bought next door to him and in less than a year he decided he had to go back to Indiana. So it left us stranded down there but then I am glad we stayed.

BERGE: You like it?

DALTON: I like it real well. I’ll never try to move out.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DALTON: Then I’ll tell you about how I live now? My wife passed away about a year and one-half 18:00ago; I tried to keep the house that we had, but living alone in a house is not easy.

BERGE: No. No.

DALTON: So I sold it and went into this retirement settlement. There is a hundred and sixty-one … BERGE: Ocala South?

DALTON: It’s in Ocala, yes.

BERGE: Is that the one on Thirty-fourth Road?

DALTON: That’s right.

BERGE: Southeast Thirty-fourth?

DALTON: Yes..

BERGE: Ok. Do you have a lot of friends there? I mean do you know … DALTON: They—I have a lot of friends there. We are all friends there, you might say. I say there are a hundred and thirty-five people living there, and the bigger part of them I know.

BERGE: How many children and grandchildren do you have?

DALTON: I have two sons. My older son—my youngest son was killed in Vietnam. His daughter was seven weeks old when he was killed. Her mother later on remarried and had another daughter. So she was the only 19:00Dalton in the family. So when she became about twelve years old, she asked me on day, she said, “Grandpa tell me about the Daltons.” BERGE: That’s why you wrote the book?

DALTON: That’s why I wrote the book.

BERGE: I notice you mention your grandchildren, you know.

DALTON: Huh-huh. So I knew very little about the Dalton’s, so it was quite a search to find the history of them.

BERGE: How long did it take you to research it and write it?

DALTON: I would say about six or seven years.

BERGE: Huh-huh. It’s a nice title, “The Mother Dalton Gang”. (laughs) DALTON: It’s never been published, I had them printed.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DALTON: And I had about eleven hundred printed..

BERGE: Oh, really?

DALTON: Yeah, and I have, I would say, a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five … BERGE: Oh, it looks like a wonderful—looks like it’s going to be a wonderful story.

DALTON: Ah, I didn’t, I haven’t sold them all, the biggest part of them now are just ( ), I got half my money back. It cost me five dollars and a quarter 20:00each to print them, and I say I got half of my money back but then it’s been a great entertainment … BERGE: Oh, yeah.

DALTON: I am looking at it that way now. Not looking at it at cost … BERGE: It gives you something to talk to people about.

DALTON: That’s right. That is one of those interesting things … BERGE: Now where did you get the pictures of the CCC you had in there? Did you have them?

DALTON: I—I had those. I don’t know whether I took them, or whether somebody gave them to me at the time or what, but anyway that is where they came from.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DALTON: And the thing of it is, the church in the background—and this book—one thing that I am proud of, is that it has inspired other people to do the same thing.

BERGE: To do their family history?

DALTON: To do their family history. And I have an article here that is similar to what your 21:00are doing now. That down at the bottom there it say that … BERGE: Oh, yeah, family history is something else.

DALTON: It should be done by everybody and it mentions tape.

BERGE: That’s right, you are right.

DALTON: And too many people tells me that this is why—how I wrote this book, the things that I tell them in it reminds them so much of their childhood or boyhood or something like that. So they are interested in it.

BERGE: Huh. This is a nice letter from this woman isn’t it?

DALTON: And here is an article that I will leave with you too.

BERGE: You going to leave this with me?

DALTON: Yeah, I am going to leave it all with you because—there 22:00is another article—incidentally this is a song I wrote about another Dalton Gang, and it … BERGE: You wrote this yourself?

DALTON: I wrote the words, I don’t know a word of music so I had someone to write the music for it. That was just some of the advertising I did. That was several years ago, I think I said seventy-three there, but I got quite a few answers from that.

BERGE: Did you get one of those typewriters yet that spell the words for you?

DALTON: Yeah, but it tells me I misspelled a word, but it doesn’t tell me how to spell it.

BERGE: Did you ever see these little things that look like calculators that spell for people?

DALTON: I don’t have one of those.

BERGE: Yeah, but they work good.

DALTON: I don’t do much writing any more. What I do 23:00write ,I put in longhand and give it to someone type it and edit it.

BERGE: Yeah, well I want to thank you for this stuff, this is really good. Tell, me This Mr. Dalton, when you—what year did you write your book?

DALTON: Ah, well … BERGE: Or what year did you get it printed?

DALTON: Huh, eighty-five.

BERGE: Well, I tell you, I bet you meet a lot of people because of the book.

DALTON: Yes, I traveled all over—all over looking for material. I waded through a lot of cemeteries. I’ve gone through a lot of Court Houses, and Church records and I’ve met cousins and relatives that I hadn’t seen in years.

BERGE: Have you been through these towns called Dalton?

DALTON: I’ve been through some of them, yes. And I’ve got literature 24:00from practically all of them. When I was writing the book, I would write to the Mayor or someone ( ) and most of them answered me back. In fact, the city of Dalton Georgia, the Librarian there did a lot of work.

BERGE: Well, that is a bigger town. Like the town I’m from, Dalton Pennsylvania, is just—you know, just nine hundred people. And it has always been nine hundred people.

DALTON: You are like I am in Clay, when I left there were twelve hundred people and now fifty years later it is the same way.

BERGE: Yeah.

DALTON: And ( ) every time someone has a baby born a boy had to leave town. (laughter) BERGE: That’s funny. That’s funny. I sure want to thank you for that book. What –what do you think has been the 25:00advantage in your life for being in the CC’s?

DALTON: Well, I think it morally, I think it had a lot to do with moral relief, because at the time I was concerned with—at the time, I would have been willing to do anything then. I mean could have gone into crime, I could have gone into … BERGE: Anything that paid.

DALTON: …that paid. But I went in there, and I met men and people in my own same condition, who were willing to get out there and work and see … BERGE: In your recollections is it really a nice bunch of men?

DALTON: Ninety—well over ninety per cent of them. Of course, we had all kinds.

BERGE; Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

DALTON: But the most of them when they came in there, they were willing to work, and do something for something to do.

BERGE: The Black 26:00CCC at Mammoth Cave, what about them?

DALTON: We had, I think later on after I left I think there was a—an entire camp went in. But at the time, I was there we had a section—we had them divided up there was four … BERGE: Yeah, Ron Williams told me about that.

DALTON: Yeah. And then half of that barracks was filled with blacks … BERGE: What kind of work did they do? Same kind of work you did?

DALTON: They worked in the rock quarry I think. If I remember correctly I think they worked in the rock quarry.

BERGE: Were most of the boys at Mammoth Cave from Kentucky?

DALTON: Yeah. In fact I think they all were. As far as I know, later on, at the time, I was--there they were all from Kentucky.

BERGE: That is the only camp you were in?

DALTON: That is the only camp I was in.

BERGE Did you visit your mother much when you were in camp?

DALTON: Just occasionally on Holidays 27:00and… BERGE: How did you go? How did you travel?

DALTON: Hitchhiked. Once in a while there would be a group—would be enough of us that we could get somebody to drive us.

BERGE: Drive, yeah.

DALTON: So it was a--well I had—I have a tape that I took last year of the meeting here.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

DALTON: I had it redone, but then I talked to quite a few and they all had the same—I think that’s all I’ve got I used up … BERGE: You want a tape? I’ll give you one.

DALTON: Well, I’ll buy it from you.

BERGE: No, I’ll give it to you. Here ( ).

DALTON: ( ) hard to open.

BERGE: Here, I have a knife. {sounds of trying to open recorder} 28:00Here are a couple of other blank ones. They don’t have any labels on them, if you have labels you can have those too.

DALTON: Thanks a lot. You will notice here on this—now that will be the one I will send you a copy of that. That was for last year.

BERGE: Oh, great, great. I’d love to have it.

DALTON: And I’ll just give you and idea of –it’s on the other side BERGE: What I’ll do—I’m 29:00just going to hang this up—turn this off. When you were in the CC’s were you a church goer?

DALTON: I was before I went in but—no I didn’t go when I was in the service because … BERGE: Did they have services?

DALTON: Yeah, and they just weren’t, well … BERGE: You weren’t interested.

DALTON: I wasn’t interested, and I didn’t know the people. Well they would have a minister come every once in a while for a service that—it wasn’t like going to church so I just faded out. (laughter) BERGE: I understand. How about girls, did you go with any girls when you were in the CCC?

DALTON: Yes, I did in fact I was engaged to one.

BERGE: Where? Down by Bowling Green or somewhere?

DALTON: Down 30:00near that area, yeah. But then, I left and I went back, and got away and didn’t get married.

BERGE: Where is your wife from?

DALTON: My wife—my first wife was from Cincinnati. I met her there and… BERGE: When you were up there working.

DALTON: Yeah. After twenty-one years or so we were divorced. I found out—well my sons told me what she was doing—she was running around ( ).

BERGE: Well, did you get married again?

DALTON: I later married again. She died and a couple of three years after we were divorced, she was supposed to be in perfectly good health at the time, after I was married again she found out she had breast cancer and passed away later on. Now I … BERGE: That was your first wife you mean.

DALTON: That was my first wife. Now my second wife I met her in Hamilton, she was from Kentucky. She was from Barbourville Kentucky.

BERGE: Oh, like your first wife.

DALTON: Yeah. And, but 31:00she lived up there. I met her, she had been married too, so … BERGE: Did she have children?

DALTON: She had one daughter, and, but then, our children were grown so we—she passed away a year ago in May.

BERGE: How long were you two married?

DALTON: We would have been married twenty-five years within two weeks.

BERGE: That’s something, that is really a long time.

DALTON: She was a wonderful person.

BERGE: That’s a long time to be married—I mean you were married a long time to both those women—more than twenty years DALTON: Well, twenty-two years with the first one.

END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE DALTON BEGIN SIDE TWO TAPE ONE DALTON BERGE: I want to thank you Mr. Dalton for talking to me and it’s has really been a pleasure. I am really anxious to read your book. I was looking at some of it while you were talking and I think it is a great idea. I think family history is a wonderful thing.

DALTON: You have my card 32:00I’ll be there if … BERGE: I have your address … DALTON: What I am doing now … BERGE: 1821 E. Twenty-fourth Road.

DALTON: Yeah. Huh-huh.. What I am doing now is collection comments on it and … BERGE: I’ll write to you about it.

DALTON: And then your title and everything.

END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ONE END OF INTERVIEW.