Oral History Interview with Edmond B. Cherry

WILLIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed tape interview with Mr. Edmund B. Cherry. Mr. Cherry is the Director of the South Central Region of the Alumni of the CCC. The interview is conducted by William Berge, for the Kentucky Oral History Commission, on October 6, 1990 at Nine AM. The interview is conducted at the Cumberland Falls State Park. Mr. Cherry, let me start by you just telling your full name and where you were born, and when you were born.

EDMUND B. CHERRY: My full name is Edmund Brent Cherry, Jr. I was born on 5 June 1916, in Calloway County Kentucky, five miles east of Hayward, Kentucky, on the Tennessee line, grandfather’s farm.

BERGE: Ok. What was—what year again was that?

CHERRY: 1916.

BERGE: 1916. What was your father’s name?

CHERRY: Edmund Brent Cherry.

BERGE: I knew that, 1:00thanks. And what was your mother’s name?

CHERRY: Mary Brown. From Bethtage, Tennessee.

BERGE: What was that?

CHERRY: Mary Brown. Bethtage, Tennessee.

BERGE: How do you spell that, where she is from?

CHERRY: Bethtage, B e t h t a g e.

BERGE: Two words?

CHERRY: No one word.

BERGE: One word huh.

CHERRY: It’s ( ) Tennessee.

BERGE: Is that on the line too?

CHERRY: No, it’s way down there by Nashville.

BERGE: Oh, ok.

CHERRY: The reason my folks ( ),Henry County borders Calloway County Kentucky, most of my nearest kin were really from Tennessee.

BERGE: Henry County?

CHERRY: Paris, Tennessee.

BERGE: Mr. Cherry, where did you go to high school—ah, where did you go to public school?

CHERRY: I started my first few years at Tolerance school, which was two and one-half miles below my grandfather’s farm. And I went two and one-half years of high school at Hazel high school. I dropped out to join the CCC.

BERGE: Oh, you—that is what I was going to ask you. What year did you go in the CCC?

CHERRY: 1935, January. 2:00BERGE: Do you remember—did you hear much about them? Did you know much about them when you went in?

CHERRY: Yes, I heard about them. In fact, there was a camp at Murray Kentucky,. eight miles away. So I would see—go to Murray, I would see them often. But I hadn’t thought much about joining the CCC, because I was trying to get through high school. But there were two members in our family, and ( ) I couldn’t continue, I had to get out to go to work.

BERGE: Do you remember, was it your decision, or did you talk with your parents or …?

CHERRY: It was more or less my decision. Daddy was a veterinarian and, but, we had plenty of food, but to buy medicine cost money. And he finally got to—of course, the Department of Labor was responsible for the selection of people, and he finally got the Department of Labor, Mr. Burt was the local representative, to get me in the CCC.

BERGE: When you went in where did you go?

CHERRY: Well I first went to Fort Knox Kentucky. And then on the fifteenth of January, to the best of my recollection, we went to Corning California to the Mendocino 3:00National Forest, northwestern California.

BERGE: What did you think of it when you got there?

CHERRY: Oh, I loved California until I got to the mountains. We got to Corning and got off the train in San Francisco, and we got another train to Vino, California. And then rode on the trucks to Corning. Corning is a beautiful town, big black olives; we were standing in the truck, and about twenty girls came riding down on bicycles. Of course, ( ) but the truck driver says you got three miles up the mountain. (laughter) ( ) up there.

BERGE: You thought ( ). I bet that was a thrill to take that train ride up to California wasn’t it?

CHERRY: Oh, yes. We had a through train, and of course, we always rode. ( ) We left Fort Knox at night, and woke up the next morning, and the next stop was Baton Rouge Louisiana. 4:00Down the Mississippi River and across Texas, we got to Louisiana, Copra’s Cove, its a big one now it’s close to Fort Hood. And we got and put on our army overcoats and double timed for exercise, and got back on the train. The next stop was somewhere out in Arizona and the cactus and run up and down the tracks again, and of course, went on to California.

BERGE: And I’m sure it must have been a thrill for you.

CHERRY: Oh, yes, it was.

BERGE: Was everyone on the train from Kentucky or from all over?

CHERRY: Fifth Corps, see the Army is divided—the army had the administration of the CCs and divided into Corps; the Fifth Corps was Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia. So the Ohio boys ( ) to Kentucky and the Ohio boys, of course, the West Virginia boys were the same Corps with Ohio and Kentucky.

BERGE: When you went there. What was the name of the camp out there?

CHERRY: It was Camp Patton Mills, Camp Patton Mills, Paskenta 5:00 California.

BERGE: Spell that.

CHERRY: P a f k e n t a.

BERGE: How long did you stay out there?

CHERRY: Approximately three months. We moved to Montana, built a camp at Camp Bush Creek, and by the way, we had a reunion out there on July eighty-eight. I was the only one from my company to come out there. We had a hundred and fifty three, mostly from the West to come to the reunion. About fifteen ( ), what happened is that Western Montana College had a nature retreat for their students to study nature, so the Forestry let them have the camp. They built a big center there and of course, ( ) we had a great time.

BERGE: That is a spectacular place isn’t it?

CHERRY: Oh, yes, most camps are destroyed and gone, this is there.

BERGE: What—which place most impresses you California or Montana?

CHERRY: Oh, Montana. Oh, I love Montana. I love it. 6:00I stayed there until ( ). The Labor Department, I guess, each state had a quota for so many people each year. ( ) the first time I came back to Kentucky, ( ) my sister had almost got burned to death and lost her home. ( ) April nineteen thirty seven I hitchhiked back to Montana, I went to the CCC camp. The next morning the Captain said, ( ) “report to my good friend Captain Wilson,” he said, “if you could pass the test and be enrolled as a Local Experienced Man.” ( ) was my expertise, they got my whole thirty dollars right there. I went to work, I stayed there until October and they sent ( ) to Bozeman Montana. I stayed there and the camp pulled out in December and they sent me ( ) and spent two years there. ( ) BERGE: You spent a lot to time in Montana then.

CHERRY: Oh, yes.

BERGE: Did you ever think of staying out there?

CHERRY: Oh, yes, 7:00I did but then I made a mistake—I came—back. In those days college graduates ( ), for a fella like I was education was ( ). So I made a big mistake I went to Detroit I went to ( ).

BERGE: Everybody ( ) the time to go to college.

CHERRY: Right.

BERGE: That was the mistake I made, I should have gone to college, but I didn’t. I came back the second time and went to school in Detroit, came back to Kentucky in bad health.

BERGE: Did you take—what kind of school did you go to?

CHERRY: Well,( ) no safety standards ( ) in New York, I mean in Detroit that summer. So I came back to Kentucky, I was sick I was spitting up … BERGE: From that stuff, from that paint?

CHERRY: Yeah, I had no safety mask or anything. 8:00So I ( ) a farm on the Tennessee river which is on the Kentucky Lake right now, and ( ). And my aunt she was determined to make me well. She made me eat proteins and fats, and made the drinks to clean out—made hot tea to clean out my ( ), and in a couple months I was ready to kick them again. So then, I was going to go back to school.

BERGE: Now they wouldn’t let you do that because it would ruin your arteries. (laughs) CHERRY: Right. But I was going to go back to high school. Did you ever hear of New Concord Kentucky?

BERGE; Yeah.

CHERRY: They had a high school down there of course, and it was about, I guess, fifteen miles from where I lived. I knew I could finish my high school.

BERGE: What year was this now?

CHERRY: It was nineteen and forty, nineteen forty.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

CHERRY: The ( ) the twelfth of June, I was ( ) and finish high school. Then a bunch of high school graduates from New Concord lived in the area. They had got letter from the Navy about going into the Navy. So they said let’s go join up. And ( ) back to me, ( ) fifteen miles from Murray ( ). So I went to Paducah and enlisted in the Army. 9:00So I said well, you know people get killed in the Army, I said, I had two weeks ( ) the sergeant said no, you won’t. I ( ) Fulton Tennessee ( ) and went back took me to Fort Knox and Fort Benning. That was the best post in the army at that time—infantry center. So I went to Fort Knox, and I said, “I want to go in the infantry, I was tough, I was a farm boy.” BERGE Let me get the door.

CHERRY: I was tough, I was a farm boy. I want to ( ) be a fighting man. I ( ) I wanted to go in the infantry. They said, “you can’t go in the infantry cause you ( ).” So ( ) ( ) no, 10:00you have to have a high school education. ( ) you raised the criteria.

BERGE: Yeah.

CHERRY: They said, “you need a note for Fort Benning.” I said, “ok give me a note.” I went to Fort Benning and I, and I went to ( ) school and was a ( ) student … BERGE: Where do they have that kind of ( ) school?

CHERRY: It is a special high school at Fort ( ).

BERGE: They used to have it at Fort Sam Houston in Texas.

CHERRY: No this is back ( ) center they had there.

BERGE: ( ) {they are talking at once}

CHERRY: It was conducted by the Central High School.

BERGE: Sure.

CHERRY: I would ( ) combat medical training, first aid and everything, I think it was. Well, old boy Glass and I had a ninety-seven class average, and they said, “you get the class you want” Well, Glass, they put in the morgue, but I was put in the surgical ward packing bed pans. (laughter).

BERGE: How long did you stay there?

CHERRY: I stayed till November. ( ) surgical 11:00technician, and they needed cadre to go to Camp Blanding and open up the reception tent, and open up the hospital. So we went to Blanding, and slept on the sand that night. ( ) till the center got built. We started taking the ( ) up ( ) induction center, and then, I heard Camp Clark, Tennessee was open and ( ) close to home. And so I got transferred to Camp Clark, Tennessee, and that was in April of 1941. I was fixed to go to pharmacist school, at Hot Springs Arkansas, and technicians school. And I left in June and went to Hot Springs; had the most wonderful time in my life. I think there was a beautiful girl on every corner, I had a great time.

BERGE: Race track?

CHERRY: Race track and a hot spring, and the hospital was right on the front of the Main Street.

BERGE: Yeah.

CHERRY: Go down the street and ( ) ( ) you could always find somebody 12:00you know and ( ). It was nice. So when I got through Hot Springs I got back, and got made a Corporal. And I got ( ) and he was always ( ) ( ) hot tippers. ( ) I got busted. ( ) ( ) ( ). Its been wonderful ever since.

BERGE: When did you get out of the service?

CHERRY: June, I think it was, the first 1941. Excuse me 1960.

BERGE: Huh-huh. Another career?

CHERRY: Another career, that’s right. ( ) hospital, world War II. Trans-Atlantic I believe—I’m not quite sure fourteen round trips—no, no, no, seven round trips.

BERGE: A medic all the time?

CHERRY: Yes, sir. I was administration. I was made a Sergeant Major in nineteen, new job—hospitals—in 13:00nineteen forty-four, a Sergeant Major of the Unit. ( ) Missouri, 1947. 1950 ( ) I went to Korea, I came back from Korea I went to Fort Sam Houston Texas BERGE: I was at Fort Sam.

CHERRY: … and then I went to Germany spent three years, went back to Fort Sam and retired in 1960, November of 1960.

BERGE: Huh-huh. Did you come back to Tennessee ( )?

CHERRY: No. I was at Fort Sam, I went to work in San Antonio and I got promoted and I went—the army started what they call the ( ) ( ). The best engineering pilot ( ) Sanders and I went into it, and got promoted, and went to Fort 14:00( ) Colorado and got a good raise in pay; went to Fort Monroe Virginia, which ( ) a man named Maize, in the ROTC and I became ( ) in the ROTC program, in 1967 and retired again. ( ) until 1975 and I returned to the ROTC ( ) ( ). I wrote the regulations ( ).

BERGE: When did you go back to Tennessee?

CHERRY: After that, I stayed in Virginia till seventy-eight. and moved to Tennessee in seventy-eight.

BERGE: Why, because your wife …?

CHERRY: Well, no my wife’s sister’s husband died, and she decided to buy a duplex. My wife’s sister worked for Bell Telephone in Murfreesboro, and they moved the office to Columbia. So we moved to Columbia and ( ) a duplex there. So ( ) ( ) for 15:00two years, and I was fund drive Chairman for the American Legion, and Big Brothers for two years. I was a real estate broker, and I retired from there. I have been active in the American Legion until recently. I was Public Relations Officer, I was ( ) ( ) ( ).

BERGE: How come—how did you get into the National Association for the Civilian Conservation Corps?

CHERRY: Well, I had heard very vaguely ( ) and I had the ( ) relations ( ) in Tennessee. So I happened to go to Montgomery Bell in eighty-eight, which was a reunion near Dixie. ( ) last year. Enjoyed it and I happened to pick up speaker flyers—see he did ( )—and 16:00I saw his name and I called him and said, “I want to go to work.” He made me Coordinator for the State of Tennessee. ( ) ( ) for this region. I also reported to the Coordinator for Public Affairs.

BERGE: Hum-hum. Let me ask you one question before we call this off. What would you say, if you were talking to somebody who didn’t know anything about the CCC—what would you say to them, if they asked you what you thought about it, and how successful it was? You know what value was it?

CHERRY: Well, I think the first thing was my health, I was strong I guess, but I never ( ) and I weighed one hundred and nine pounds when I went in and I weighed one hundred and forty-eight when I got out. Ah, I … BERGE: ( ) statistics 17:00something like the average person that went in the CCC gained seventeen pounds.

CHERRY: ( ) I only weighed one hundred forty-eight when I got out. Also, I learned about people. See, I was raised in the part of Kentucky that I guess, ( ), the kind of people that, except for the black people that ( ), they were, ah, they ( ).

BERGE: Hun-hum.

CHERRY: I never saw a Catholic, I never saw a Jew, I never saw a Polish, … BERGE: ( ) {talking over Cherry} I understand that now.

CHERRY: So, when I went to Fort Knox, there were Italians, there were Jews, and Polaks and ( ) everybody else.

BERGE: In other words it was an education wasn’t it? 18:00CHERRY: It was an education and I ( ). But I could have stayed ( ). I worked first as a water boy in California ,and then took a saw—an axe. ( ) ( ). ( ) telephone lines and … BERGE: When you were in Montana what did they do for recreation?

CHERRY: Well, they, I didn’t have too much when I was at Camp ( ) Creek. I was only there one summer, and I ( ) Virginia City the next summer ( ). We played baseball that first summer, that was a big thing.

BERGE: Did you play on the team?

CHERRY: Oh, I played second base.

BERGE: Do you remember other players. 19:00CHERRY: We usually played Melrose, a little town half-way between Butte and a little town … BERGE: Were they town teams or high school teams or what?

CHERRY: I don’t remember, sir. I only remember Melrose. ( ).

BERGE: Let me ask, one of my brothers-in-Law told me that he played, when he was in school he was in Georgia ( ), and they used to play CCC camps. ( ) he said that he remembers really super players in some of those teams. He said the guys were a little older that had played in high school ( ) something, and then they would get in there and play in those teams.

CHERRY: Now I got some records at home—newspaper cuts--when I was out in the boondocks 20:00there doing telephone lines that ( ) the football teams, baseball team, football teams, the basketball team.

BERGE: Did you do boxing?

CHERRY: Oh, we had a lot of boxing. yeah.

BERGE: Boxing was a big thing wasn’t it?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: It was for me, I had never put the gloves on and they laced them on my hands (Hite?). (laughter) CHERRY: We had a championship boxing in Louis Bell. He finally got beat by Ralph Pokum ( ), he was a good fighter. We had a lot of prize fighters. ( ) BERGE: Did you—were you stationed with any people from the west at all, or … CHERRY: Yeah, when I went to Montana--sometime during the summer of 1937, they made a rule that ( ) you were a Local Experience Man. It meant you were a local man, which I was now. That you had to be in a Ninth Corps unit. They sent me to Squaw Creek near Bozeman in 1963, it was Ninth Corps, I stayed there about three months. They closed it up and ( ) went to Glacier which was also a Montana Ninth 21:00Corps outfit. So I had recreation at Glacier, we had –we played basketball, we had ( ) come out from ( ) and we had the education department ( ). Did that go through your tape?

BERGE: No that’s ok. Did you ever go back to that country and look at it after you…?

CHERRY: I went back there in eighty-eight for a reunion.

BERGE: Yeah, you said you did that. Yeah. See anybody you knew?

CHERRY: I saw one man surprisingly, we stayed at the Western Montana College Dormitory, I did, and there was quite a few of us. And we—the camp was thirty-three miles away, so we would go out to the parking lot and a bus would pick us up. So I go out there and man says, “I know you,” he said, “you were one of the only Kentucky boys 22:00in the outfit.” ( ), I saw him ( ), I though he had got killed in the war, the last time I saw him, he was from Kentucky—Jefferson County, Paintsville, no ( ) Creek. and I thought he was dead. ( ) army 1940. so I( ), And I ( ) ( ).

BERGE: Yeah, It’s on I 75.

CHERRY: We stopped there. Yeah, I 75. You go to Dalton. We had a wonderful time.

BERGE: I always stop there and get gas, the Shell station is a little cheaper there.

CHERRY: We had a wonderful time.

BERGE: Well, listen Mr. Cherry I want to thank you for coming by and letting me having this—is this yours? 23:00I might try to get in touch with you again sometime about the people, you know everybody in the region. You have a newsletter you send out?

CHERRY: Yeah, we have a newsletter we send out every month.

BERGE: What I might do sometime is ask you to put a message in there for me. Would that be all right?

CHERRY: Sure.

BERGE: Thank you very much. 24:00END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE CHERRY.

END OF INTERVIEW.