Oral History Inrterview with Elmer Rowe

WILLIAM H. BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed taped interview with Mr. Elmer Rowe, of Polsgrove, Kentucky. The interview is conducted by Mr. William Berge, for the Kentucky Oral History Commission at Cumberland Falls State Park, on October 7, 1990. Mr. Rowe is going to talk to us today primarily about some of his experiences in the Civilian Conservation Corps. Elmer if you don’t mind, would you start off by telling me your complete name, and where you were born, and when you were born?

ELMER ROWE: Elmer Rowe, I was born in Hardeman, Kentucky, July 19, 1917.

BERGE: 1917?

ROWE: Huh-huh.

BERGE: Halder … ROWE: H a l d e m a n, H a l d e n a n, 1:00nine mile east of Morehead. Rowan County.

BERGE: Rowan County. What was your dad’s name?

ROWE: William Centers Rowe.

BERGE: That middle …?

ROWE: William Centers … BERGE: C-e-n-t-e-r?

ROWE: C-e-n-t-e-r-s.

BERGE: Huh.

ROWE: Centers Rowe.

BERGE: What was your mother’s name?

ROWE: Lizzy May.

BERGE: Her maiden name.

ROWE: Blankenship.

BERGE: Blankenship. Ok. Ah, were they from there too Rowan County?

ROWE: Oh, I think that they were both originally out of Elliot County.

BERGE: Elliot. Ok. Ah, ROWE: Oh, excuse me, originally out of Morgan. Mom was.

BERGE: When you were born there, and where did you go to school?

ROWE: Haldeman.

BERGE: For how long?

ROWE: I finished fourth grade there, and I went to school some in Elliot County near Sandy Hook, and then I finished to the eighth grade in the three C’s.

BERGE: Oh, you did?

ROWE: Huh-huh.

BERGE: Did you do some of that night school, that was …?

ROWE: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

BERGE: Oh, good I’ve not talked to anybody about that.

ROWE: We 2:00had, good educational service that’s—well, any educational service is only as good as the people.

BERGE: I’ll ask you about it in a minute. Ok, so when did you finish going to school? Regular school?

ROWE: At what age you mean?

BERGE: No, what year. Do you have any idea?

ROWE: Ah, probably, thirty-two.

BERGE: Ok. And when did you go in the three C’s?

ROWE: Thirty-five.

BERGE: What did you do between the time you finished—can I help you?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Am I interrupting?

BERGE: No, it’ll be ok, just a minute. Let me just put this {shuts off recorder} … This ah, what did you do from the time you finished school?

ROWE: Well, as you know, I said previously, 3:00I didn’t finish… BERGE: Yeah, yeah, you said … ROWE: I had to quit going to school and go to work at whatever we could get … BERGE: Yeah, what work did you do?

ROWE: Well, if it hadn’t been for digging’ some wells, we had a dry spell. It dried up ever thing, money was dry, and ever thing else and we went to digging’ wells. And believe it or not, that had another thing, that picks up another plate. When I went to the service, after the three C’s and ever thing, well I had some prior explosive experiences … BERGE: Digging wells.

ROWE: Digging’ wells and blasting.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

ROWE: So, when I finished Jump School for the Paratroopers, we went into demolition and got us home. Wound up in demolition and demolition, ( ).

BERGE: You worked around odd jobs, digging wells, and this sort of thing, and then how did you hear about the three C’s?

ROWE: I don’t really remember. It was just conversation 4:00through the neighborhood, so and so Jim Brown, went to the three C’s the other day. Charley Jones has been there for two months already.

BERGE: So you knew about it.

ROWE: Well, I didn’t know what it was.

BERGE: Yeah.

ROWE: I knew it was a job somewhere.

BERGE: Yeah.

ROWE: And that when you went you didn’t know where you was going.

BERGE: Yeah. And the money came home while you were there? Yeah.

ROWE: So it sounds—well it wasn’t as bad … BERGE: Where did you sign up?

ROWE: Ah the first time I signed up was in Sandy—well, I, both times—all the times I signed up for the three C’s was in Sandy Hook, Kentucky.

BERGE: Sandy Hook. Where did they give you a physical?

ROWE: Herschel Kerman and I was discussing’ that, one time I got a physical in Morehead. The first time I signed up. I was in two different times.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

ROWE: And 5:00that’s when I went in Nevada in thirty-five.

BERGE: Ok. So when you first went in they sent you to Nevada.

ROWE: Yeah.

BERGE: Where’d you go then?

ROWE: Well, that was about the awfulest place you ever got into. We was one hundred and ten miles from Melee right out in the woods. Thirty-two miles from any town, and they had board sidewalks. And when I got six months in there, that was enough of that. So I knew that in about three months they would be signing up some more; so I took off. Was discharged.

BERGE: Did they pay your way back home?

ROWE: Well, yeah, I was only signed up for six months, so I just didn’t reenlist and so they sent me—I had transportation papers back home. So then when I got back home, I go downtown and tell them, “let me know when you get ready to sign up another bunch.” 6:00So, when they got ready to sign up another bunch, three months later, I was back in. I was here.

BERGE: Oh, and the sent you here.

ROWE: Yeah. Sent me here to Cumberland Falls.

BERGE: Ok. Now let’s go back to this Nevada thing. What did you do out there? What kind of work?

ROWE: Well, telephone lines, and building roads, and that was the most that I know of, was the telephone lines … BERGE: ( ) huh?

ROWE: Yeah, there was some more ( ), we had a pretty rough winter, and half of the time it was too bad to go out to work. Oh, yeah, and this ( ), we, ah, hit a month, mumps epidemic, and they cleaned out one barracks, and we had thirty-three at one time--cases of mumps.

BERGE: Did you get them?

ROWE: Oh, yeah.

BERGE: Suffer with them?

ROWE: Oh, God, I’m telling you. (laughter) 7:00One guy was in there, he had the mumps on one side, thirty day, now thirty days… BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

ROWE: Ok. He got out for Thanksgiving Day for dinner, he got out the day before Thanksgiving; he woke up Thursday morning with the other side of his face swelled up, and he was back in for another thirty days. (laughter) BERGE: Oh, God that is awful. That is awful! Where were most of the people that were out there in Nevada from, that were there with you?

ROWE: Quite a few of them were out of Kentucky. Down in Horse Cave and Mammoth Cave area, there was pretty wide spread area … BERGE: That was the first time, I guess, that you had gone anywhere in your life, wasn’t it?

ROWE: Oh, about the first time I had been anywhere further from home than Morehead.

BERGE: So, I guess that was exciting, anyway.

ROWE: Oh, yes, it was a good experience.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. When you went 8:00to take your discharge after six months, did you have to turn in all your clothes and everything?

ROWE: Yeah. You had a uniform to go home in and … BERGE: That’s all.

ROWE: Yeah.

BERGE: The rest of the stuff you turn in, back in.

ROWE: Your main supplies, bulk, yeah. I don’t remember now, I couldn’t tell you… BERGE: So when you signed up the next time, it was when? The second time? Do you remember when?

ROWE: Well, I come out in, I believe it was April, and went back in, in July. June or July.

BERGE: July of eighty-six?

ROWE: Oh, no, BERGE: Of thirty-six I mean.

ROWE: Of, thirty-six, yeah.

BERGE: Yeah. July of thirty-six. Tell me this, when you were out in Nevada were you involved in any of the education programs out there?

ROWE: No. That is one of the bad things. It wasn’t only me that--they had a dandy program of—worth a fortune--but you know when you are young, 9:00you just don’t have sense enough to care. Now I could tell the kids about it but that don’t do no … BERGE: Sure.

ROWE: When you find out what you have missed it is too late to do anything about it. They had a—went through a Cat—Caterpillar school course—they would tie it down completely. I mean down. Tracks. Down through the thing, everything that wasn’t welded and tie it down; wash it, grease it, put it back together, 10:00go operate it for a week. Come back and tie it down—or re-service it and it was ah—I think, it was about an eight weeks class. And you know, when they finished that class they only had about—I think about five people out of that many that had sense enough to take it.

BERGE: To take it.

ROWE: And I was one of the dumb ones.

BERGE: Hum-hum. So tell me this, you came back here, and the next place you were assigned was down here at Cumberland Falls. Which camp were you in here?

ROWE: 1578. I ( ) at Dry Bridge.

BERGE: Ok. When you were here, what kind of work did you all do?

ROWE: Well, as you know, the whole thing was generally was par—State Park work.

BERGE: Yeah.

ROWE: But, my main job, Oscar Barker and myself 11:00and an old guy from over at Corbin, he was what they call an LEM, a Local Experienced Man.

BERGE: Oh, yeah.

ROWE: And he was an alcoholic. Had worked on the L and N for quite a while and he had quite an interesting life.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

ROWE: He would still drink heavy when … BERGE: He tell you stories? (laughs) ROWE: He told us why he got fired at L and N. He was still at the yard in Corbin and he--they had brought a train in for service one day--and the old man Cash got his paint-spray out, and he painted the side engine red. The steam was still up on it, and he got in it and started to pull out, and he went through three switches … BERGE: He was drinking I guess?

ROWE: Oh, yes, he was drunk. And he went through three switches, he got past three blocks before they got to him, and he was only about fifty-yard from the main line track when they got him derailed. 12:00BERGE: Huh-huh. (laughs) ROWE: And got him stopped. And needless to say he didn’t paint any more engines.

BERGE: You got a lot of good stories from him, huh?

ROWE: Oh, God he was full of them. One day out at the intersection, where ah … BERGE: Twenty-five is.

ROWE: Twenty-five is, now, the right one that goes into Williamsburg--it forks there--one for Corbin and one for Williamsburg—ah twenty-five straight across is like a triangle, BERGE: Yeah, I remember it.

ROWE: From here we went into the right triangle, there was a big sign, oh, God it was—must have been ten or twelve foot long—and what it was, it says, Cumberland Falls State Park. And big letters the sign had been, you know painted and built, but we was going out to redo it.

BERGE: Yeah.

ROWE: We 13:00got out there—oh, it was simple, anybody could do it. We painted the green part, and of course, you could see the white, ( ) outlined. We didn’t have to do any outlining, because you could see it through the green. We just put on our coat of green, one day and the next day we went out to start the lettering. Paint it white, green and white, well, ( ) a drink of whiskey, and he and Miles he ( ). (laughter) Well, we got our buckets, and our paint brushes, and our scaffold fixed up, and we got in there and we went to work. And bout a half an hour, 14:00forty-five minutes, Cash come back, he come up on the scaffold and said, “look what I found.” And he pulled out the bottle, and he had a pint of whiskey. We cleaned the set of brushes with paint thinner, and sat down and we drank the pint. I said, “Slim, you got any money?” ( ) said, “I got a little.” Well, I had too, we gave him the money—go back and get us another pint. About two o’ clock I happened—I lucked out, hit a lucky streak and looked up, and we had painted the letter U and the letters ( ) and there were more palm prints, then there was letters. (laughter) And 15:00I said, “Oh, my God, Slim, grab that thinner and a rag,” and we grabbed the paint thinner and the rag and we mopped the sign off. I’m telling you it was lucky I looked up.

BERGE: Yeah. ( ) ROWE: Oh, yeah, we had to took it from scratch.

BERGE: What would they have done if they caught you messing up like that? Anything?

ROWE: Oh, no, there would have just been a good chewing out. But anyway , see they took us out—took us out on the truck— BERGE: And dropped you off.

ROWE: And dropped us off, and was going to come back and get us that evening. Well, they forgot us. Ah, about seven o’ clock somebody said, “ well, where in the hell is Rowe?” BERGE: Huh-huh.

ROWE: They said, “ I don’t know, ( ) he ain’t been around.” Somebody said, “ well, I haven’t seen Barker either.” Somebody else said, “well, old man Cash is gone too. What the hell, 16:00they is still out.” Well, they sent the truck out after us.

BERGE: What kind of condition were you all in, when they got there?

ROWE: Polluted as a hoot-owl, all three of us. I mean we was loaded. (laughter) Old man Cash made about four trips … BERGE: Yeah. For whiskey?

ROWE: Back to that bootleg joint, and when they come after us, I mean we was loaded.

BERGE: Was there much of that kind of stuff going on?

ROWE: Oh, yeah. It wasn’t all bad, I mean we had ups and downs, and they just about equaled out.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. How about women? You got a lot of whiskey did you get many women around?

ROWE: This is a--I never was any place where there wasn’t any women.

BERGE: Yeah.

ROWE: I guess that is why … BERGE: How about out here? This is kind of isolated wasn’t it?

ROWE: Nooo, God there were more women here than there were in town.

BERGE: I didn’t know that.

ROWE: Oh, we was going down—speaking of women—we was going down Trail 17:00One; went from over the edge of the falls, over the hills, down to the beach had a nice beach down there and ( ).

BERGE: I can remember when that was down there.

ROWE: God, it is a shame that it ever got burned, destroyed like it is. That was a paradise.

BERGE: It was a lot nicer than that pool.

ROWE: Oh, yeah. Oh, I reckon! There was a beach there that wouldn’t quit.

BERGE: Yeah.

ROWE: Well, we went down there—we had a sign that we had worked on down on Trail One. Trail One went down to the river, and it must have been one o’ clock or something; well, Wentworth, E. C. Wentworth was the park Superintendent, of course he was our boss, when we was out in the park. Well, when 18:00we got down to where we could see the beach, I looked over towards the water, and here are three chicks, over here swimming.

BERGE: Yeah. Were they young girls?

ROWE: Oh, yeah.

BERGE: Now where would they be from?

ROWE: I have no idea. It would be hard to say, they could be from anywhere.

BERGE: They were tourists?

ROWE: Oh, yeah they were tourists, they could have been from Canada, anywhere.

BERGE: Yeah, I see. Ok. Ok.

ROWE: Well, I said, “Hey, Stan look at what we got over here, some chicks.” I said, “come on.” So we went over … BERGE: Was old man Cash with you?

ROWE: No, Cash wasn’t with us he had a little paint job, a sign job.

BERGE: ( ) the paint thinner. (laughs) ROWE: Yeah, he might have been using the paint thinner. But anyway, Slim come over, and we went over to the edge of the water and I set my blow torch down. We had a blow torch, we would heat iron and burn the sign—made it look antiquey. And I set my blow torch down, and when we went down to the girls, they just piled 19:00out of the water right now and come over. Oh, we was having a ball, then one stayed out in the water and I looked out there and I said, “hey, baby doll, what’s the matter, you think you are too good to come join us?” “Oh, I’ll be all right out here. I’ll just stay out here for a while.” Oh, I said, “come on in don’t be like that.” “Oh,” she said, “I guess I can stay out if I want to.” I said, “don’t get snotty with me baby doll, I’ll set the damn river on fire with you.” I said, “I’ll fire that river up.” She said, “who do you think you are, Jesus Christ that are going to burn the water?” I said, “you done, done it honey.” Picked that old blow torch up and I turned that gas on and squirted gas making sure, you know—I knew what I was doing, no danger—( ) blower squirt water on the gasoline, and I give that old water a good spray 20:00with that gasoline. And I struck a match, and stuck it to that gas and whooom, dang, I had the river on fire.

BERGE: Yeah. (laughs) Did she come out?

ROWE: You better believe she come out of there I mean she come out of there but fast.

BERGE: Did anybody hear about it?

ROWE: Did anybody hear about it? That damn Wentworth was standing on Lookout Point with binoculars We didn’t know there was anyone in Whitley or McCreary County that knew we was there. Wentworth was standing up there with his binoculars watching. When we got off the truck that evening … BERGE: He knew exactly where you were and everything.

ROWE: Oh, hell, yes. He knew we was his sign boys, and … BERGE: Have a seat.

ROWE: He called us in, and he said, “Rowe,” he said, “Oscar,” I am going to have to take you off the sign detail.” 21:00I looked at him. He said, “ yeah, I seen you.” He said, “and I’ve got to give you credit Elmer, for thinking, and what a sense of humor you got.” He said, “that was as beautiful a trick, as I have ever seen in my life, setting that river on fire. You sure got a kick out of that didn’t you?” BERGE: (Laughs) ROWE: (giggles) He said, “that was magnificent, but,” he said, “we can’t have it. Not in a State Park.” So, he said, “I’m going to have to take you and send you off…” BERGE: What 22:00did you do then?

ROWE: Well, he sent Slim to one detail, sent me to another. Which, now, I don’t know who the foreman was, on it.

BERGE: Did you ever get back on the signs?

ROWE: Well, about three days later, Wentworth come to me and he said, “Elmer, I would like for you to do me a favor.” He said, “there is a sign down at the end of a section of Trail so and so,” he said, “I would like for you to go out and put it up.” I said, “no, I can’t.” I said, “there is a good job opening up for two guys, and I am not going to work here…” BERGE: And there too.

ROWE: “And then ever time you need a sign put up you are going to come out here and take me back there to put up a sign.” I said, “ I am not going to do it.” He said, “ you not going to go put the sign up?” I said, “no.” I said, “I am working this detail.” “Well,” he said, “go to hell.” So he goes to Barker, and we hadn’t prearranged this, it just worked out thataway, and Barker told him word for word what I told him. He told Barker to go to hell too. 23:00BERGE: So what did he do?

ROWE: Well, that evening when we come in, he hollered for us. He said, “I am going to put you fellows back on the sign detail,” he said, “Elmer,” he said, “if you get close to the river, throw that damn blow torch away.” So that finish up the river part.

BERGE: You know earlier you were saying you did some more school, after you were in the CCC, is that here, that you did that?

ROWE: Yeah. Yeah we had a class here and then I went to school some—you see this company moved. When we left here we went to Illinois and … BERGE: When you went to that school, how many days a week, or how many nights a week was that, do you remember?

ROWE: I think about three—seems to me about three nights, 24:00two hours maybe three nights—two or three nights a week.

BERGE: When you all left here and went to Illinois, how much work had been done here?

ROWE: How much had been done?

BERGE: Hum-hum.

ROWE: Oh, there had been a lot of it. All the roads from the falls to the park boundary had been—they started in and they dug and sloped the road back … BERGE: Hum-hum.

ROWE: It wasn’t steep any more. You can still see the sign of that, there’s trees growed up in it. But they sloped that back, fertilized it, and sowed grass, and in six months after we got here you could begin seeing—and Mr., old man Wentworth, now those—he was out of Corbin—and lived on Wentworth hill and they was 25:00( ) and Whitley County.

BERGE: Hum-hum. What was in here where we are now? When you all left?

ROWE: Ah, what’s here now.

BERGE: Were the cabins here?

ROWE: Yeah. We had cabins. The cabins that’s not here now, were here then, they was log. All of them were log cabins.

BERGE: Did you build all of them?

ROWE: Built some of them. Built quite a few of them. But there was also log cabins built when we came here.

BERGE: How about down at the—what was it like down there by the falls? Was that parking lot in there then?

ROWE: Yeah. Just exactly ( ) well, I got pictures of it and, if I would have thought of it in time I still have them here in my suitcase. I got pictures, of three C’s—just a three C album.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

ROWE: And I got pictures of the falls, of that old hotel and… BERGE: Where was the old hotel? 26:00ROWE: Just—you know where the little restaurant is up by the gift shop now?

BERGE: Hum-hum.

ROWE: Just straight out from that, there was a big hotel in there. And you would go right by the end of the hotel, and go over where that set of steps goes under the falls—not there now—that’s where the—there was a big hotel there. And also across the river on that hill, there was--you could go over there and see where the hotel stood, you know.

BERGE: Where that house—that big building with all the windows?

ROWE: Yeah. Well, it’s been leveled off, straight across. The ferry had a cable that was, ah, cable driven. You’d—the guy had, had big block of wood, he’d hook over that cable and walk to the other end of the boat. And he’d walk ( ), and he’d walk this, and 27:00he’d walk over there. And then he would walk back, and he would take two cars across the river at a time.

BERGE: Did you boys go across the river much?

ROWE: Oh, yeah. Oh we—we had—we was quite active and… BERGE: Let me—I never did ask anybody this, did the CCC boys ever go hunting or fishing or anything like that?

ROWE: Yeah.

BERGE: Did you?

ROWE: Not much hunting, but we done a lot of fishing.

BERGE: Was the fishing good here?

ROWE: Oh, yeah. We used to go right down from the back of the cabins and I think the possibility that—I’m going to check that out while I’m in here this time—see I’m not going home till possibly Wednesday.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

ROWE: There was a road that went down from the camp, and I suppose it was a log road. There was no automobile, it wasn’t there, just a private road drive, down through the woods. And right at the top of the hill, and we would go right over the hill into the river and we used 28:00to have some pretty wild parties. Got some other interested parties in Corbin that would come out, and they would come down in there and we’d put up… BERGE: Sunday school teachers and things like that? (laughs) ROWE: Well, no names would I—I will say this much, there was some pretty prominent people that would leave out to the week-end and… UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You said you never hunted, I thought you was quite a hunter.

ROWE: Well, he meant for game.

BERGE: (laughs) ROWE: (laughing) I fished—all the time I was fishing, I didn’t have my hook baited, but I knew where the bait was. (laughter) Oh, we had a good time here.

BERGE: It was a good time here.

ROWE: It was a wonderful time.

BERGE: Were you all upset when you got transferred up to Illinois?

ROWE No, 29:00I didn’t like any better than they liked us. I was glad to move on. That was one place that, … BERGE: No, I mean were you all upset when you left here?

ROWE: Yea, I would have liked to have stayed. I think I could have stayed here from then until now. I still like it here.

BERGE: Hum-hum. None of you liked it up there in Illinois?

ROWE: I don’t think so.

BERGE: That is what I understand.

ROWE: I didn’t see—I didn’t see anyone that liked Illinois. Were you in Illinois? Yeah. I believe you … BERGE: Tell me this why did they move the camp from here. Do you all know?

ROWE: Not really, I couldn’t answer that question. There would be a logical answer somewhere.

BERGE: Oh, no, it wouldn’t have to be logical.

ROWE: No, it wouldn’t have to be logical. (laughter) UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I think they just wanted to move us. They used to do that quite a bit in the service, you know.

ROWE: Yes, but the three C’s, 30:00wasn’t re—re—redone, here that finished the three C’s here.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Oh it did? I didn’t know that.

BERGE: That is what I meant.

ROWE: There were no more three C’s … BERGE: You were the last one’s weren’t you?

ROWE: Yeah. We was the last here.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Hmmmm.

ROWE: I don’t know why, but I would say it was political.

BERGE: Well, do you think the park was about done?

ROWE: The park is never done.

BERGE: That is what I mean, but do you think the basic stuff was done?

ROWE: Well, … BERGE: Looks to me like it—looks like the State of Kentucky would have finished it instead of keeping you all here for this work. That is why I was wondering.

ROWE: Well, there was a lot of places 31:00that they have people similar to the three C’s. Some states have—now there’s a—there is a CCC camp in Ohio, about ten or twelve miles out of Portsmouth, northwest of Portsmouth. And they have—they got CCC people in there. And they are somewhat the same way. They pay men the minimum wage.

BERGE: I was wondering though, you know, it just occurred to me, what the process would have been because there was bound to be people here in Kentucky—you know the politicians in Kentucky would have wanted to keep the three C’s here because they were doing that work and it was costing very little money for it to be done.

ROWE: Right. It was the cheapest labor they could possibly get.

BERGE: The Federal Government was paying for it. I just wonder what happened.

END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE ROWE BEGIN SIDE TWO TAPE ONE ROWE BERGE: You said that you think you know the answer to why that occurred. What do you think it was? 32:00ROWE: I would say--now see, that would have been the latter part of thirty-seven when we left here. And I bet if you check back you will find that there was a big change in the political party at about election time. And I think if you run back you will see the political history on that … BERGE: Well, I do know for a fact that every time the CCC people would send somebody over to London, to work on Jenny Riley, the people in Washington would tell them to forget it, because that was a Republican County. (laughter) ROWE: I bet you money that if you went back today 33:00and checked, the time we left here and see, ( ) thirty-seven, the governors races was on the even ( ) and senators on the odd ones, it would be political I am sure.

BERGE: I don’t know enough about Kentucky politics to know, but I… ROWE: There is not very many of the ordinary people that does understand the Kentucky politics. (laughter) UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I agree with that.

ROWE: Well, they don’t intend for you to understand it.

BERGE: No. No.

ROWE; You are not supposed to.

BERGE: What was—if you were—how long—were you in the group—were you one of the ones that left the Illinois and went out to California too?

ROWE: Oh, yeah. I was one of the—I was in there. When I left—see the same company and the whole nine yards left. When 1578 left … BERGE: When you all were transported up to Illinois, how were you transported, 34:00train? Where did you pick up trains, Corbin?

ROWE: That I would say yes. I don’t remember the any.

BERGE: I just thought if you remembered all those women in Corbin standing there crying as the train pulled out. (laughter) UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: The train left at night.

BERGE: Under the cover of darkness. (laughter) ROWE: They was looking down the road to see where the next bunch were coming from.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) (laughs) BERGE: Corbin was kind of a wild town then wasn’t it?

ROWE: Oh, buddy!

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Oh, yeah.

ROWE: Anything that you wanted, some things that you didn’t want, that you got anyway. Some of it came free and some of it you paid for and still didn’t want 35:00it. It was a wild town.

BERGE: And I guess when people—the CCC boys came into town from almost every where around here. Not only at this camp but … ROWE: Oh, there was a lot of—yeah.

BERGE: ( ).

ROWE: Well, when we left, we was only in Illinois three months, wasn’t it? And then they went—we got off the train in Klamath Falls Oregon, Post Office … UNIDENTIFED VOICE: Now that was a rough town.

ROWE: Yes, Klamath Falls was, still is. But we—our post office address was ( ) Oregon, but the camp was in California, was only, but six miles?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Six miles, yes.

ROWE: To ( ) from camp.

BERGE: How long were you there?

ROWE: Oh, I don’t know. It must have been six months?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Oh, yeah, eight or nine months.

ROWE: And ah,… UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You left before I did.

BERGE: Let me see what that was. (answers door) 36:00Can I help you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Are you interviewing ( ) BERGE: You all can come in and sit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICES: Oh, well we will go on home—I was looking for my husband.

BERGE: He is still here. We will see you later.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: ( ) BERGE: I’ll stop and see you now. I’ll call you when I’m up here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICES: We didn’t want to go – BERGE: You are going to leave today, huh?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICES: Yes, we are going to leave, and we didn’t want to leave her all by herself.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Well, I didn’t either. I wanted to come down here and hold his hand.

MANY VOICES: ( ) We got to go. Bye-bye. 37:00 Ok.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Am I going to hear some stories now?

BERGE: No, you won’t hear any. So you all don’t remember how long you stayed up there in the northern part?

ROWE: We must have been up there nine months, something like that. Then … BERGE: Were all the people in that camp from Kentucky?

ROWE: No. We had a few from Indiana. One of our bosses was from Indiana, Blankenship. Was one of our boxers too. We had and I had a boxer, that I coached, but I didn’t do any fighting myself, I was peace loving man. (laughter) ( ) to grief, but he was a street fighter and I ( ). Just liked everybody.

BERGE: When you all were stationed out there—close 38:00to whatever you call it. Did any of you ever come back to Kentucky to visit?

ROWE: Not to visit and then go back.

BERGE: Nobody would have enough money would they?

ROWE: No, it was too far. Some of them stayed … BERGE: Took a discharge or whatever and come back, get home that way.

ROWE: Well, some of them stayed, took their discharge out there and this one—ah we had a—we had–after we went on down to California from northern, up at Merle Oregon was that address—Tulelake—Camp Tulelake.

BERGE: How long before you went to Tulelake?

ROWE: We left Tulelake—well 39:00it was ( ), Wilhelm, James, Wilhelm that just left here, he was in the cadre—there was twenty-five of us, that went down to build a new camp.

BERGE: Huh-huh. Did you go down with that bunch to Orland? You didn’t go down in the first group?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Not the first group.

ROWE: We went down to build a new camp. Caldwell, Lieutenant Caldwell, we always—well, we never did see anything the same way. But he called me in and told me, that, he said, “sending you to Orland to build a new camp. You are going to be in charge of it.” He said, “ I am picking you out a crew.” I said, “you just told me I was going to be in charge.” “Yes.” “Well,” I said, “you are not picking out the crew then.” 40:00He said, “are you going to start giving me trouble again?” I said, “yes.” I said, “if I am going down there in charge, I will pick the crew.” I said, “You don’t know anything about these men, you are in camp all the time.” I said, “the men don’t work in camp, they work outside.” BERGE: There was really a division too, wasn’t there? Between what went on in the daytime, and what went on in the night and who ran it, wasn’t there?

ROWE: Well, it was two different places. When we left work area, and went back to camp the army was in charge. The only thing they fed us, and ordered us, and then when we went back out, we was working for the State Park, for the State. And that was the reason that I objected to Lt. Caldwell’s picking out the crew.

BERGE: Well, 41:00did you get to pick the men you wanted?

ROWE: Yes! I told him, I said, “I will look at your list.” And I said, “if there are any on the list that I want, I’ll take them, but I won’t take them just because you have them on the list.” And Wilhelm here, that just left, I took him and I think that I took three or four that was on his list, but he agreed with me.

BERGE: How long did you stay down there by yourself to build the camp?

ROWE: Oh, we must have been there four months, wasn’t it?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) BERGE: And then when you finished what did you do?

ROWE: Well, I went to work… BERGE: You stayed there.

ROWE: Yeah. The rest of the company came down. We had one of the nicest hamburger joints in that part of the country, and this old sweet thing sitting over here, she was one—there was two girls 42:00in there that they—well, they owned it.

BERGE: How close was this to the camp?

ROWE: Oh, about half a mile.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: On the way to town.

ROWE: Yeah.

BERGE: Did you all—did they build it just because the camp was there or… ROWE: No, it was there when we … BERGE: It was there before.

ROWE: It was there when we went down. But now, it didn’t take us but a few minutes to find it. I don’t know how we found them things, somehow or other. I don’t know whether they was singing (laughter) but we found it. But anyway, ah, it was her and Joyce, and they both wound up with a whole lot of namesakes scattered around through the country. I got a daughter named Joyce and that is who it was named after.

BERGE: Huh.

ROWE: The daughter knows it, I told her. That was her namesake—Frieda I… JOYCE: I don’t know why anybody would name their daughter Frieda. 43:00ROWE: Oh, I would bet you money that there is. Bet you money that there is.

BERGE: Is that where you all built your irrigation ditches?

ROWE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Yeah, we built irrigation ditches in Oregon too.

BERGE: Oh, you did, up there?

ROWE: Well, the at Tulelake my main project up there, that I was in charge of, if you remember Medrow, was the Vet Hospital. We built a Vet Hospital.

BERGE: Where was that?

ROWE: Well that’s a good—combination of something that you come in –it was a change over place for the migration and the flyway. And we would go out and pick them up—we seen a big flock on the water--we would go out with the boat, and the one’s that didn’t get 44:00off the water we would pick up and take them in. And we would syringe them, and clean them up, and put them in the place, and keep them till—oh, it saved a lot of waterfowl.

BERGE: How long did you stay in the CC’s?

ROWE: I was in a little over four years.

BERGE: When did you leave?

ROWE: In thirty-nine.

BERGE: And then what did you do?

ROWE: Got married.

BERGE: You had to do more than get married. You had to work or something.

ROWE: Well, I had to work before I got married. (laughs) BERGE: Where did you go when you got married, back here?

ROWE: No, I tried farming for a few years and like to starve. And then, of course, that was ( ) that was in thirty-nine, and then this other ( ) and ( ) started up, and I went to Canton Ohio and got a job there. And stayed 45:00till I went to the service, and then after the war was over I went back to Canton.

BERGE: Let me turn that door so that we won’t get so much of that noise.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: They got another room over there?

ROWE: That is down in the basement.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Everybody left huh?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Hum-hum SECOND UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Church women eating dinner down there or something.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: Oh, the buses just came in—three buses.

ROWE: That is the Senior Citizens then. Them old people. Them old codgers. (laughter) BERGE: So, what did you do in Canton?

ROWE: I worked in a machine ship.

BERGE: Why did you quit the CC’s? Did you have to or…?

ROWE: I had to. You had a limit on how much time you could stay. Well, three times I had got 46:00to that point, where they was going to throw me out, and once, I had one more day, till they shipped me out. And they got the orders changed, and the next morning instead of taking me off, the man told me, he said, “ we got more orders, you can stay.” So I stayed another year, I believe it was. But then ,it finally all caught up with me. They called us CC bums. You know after so long. Well four years, hell I think Medrow got four years.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I was a bum, I made good money, I wasn’t going … ROWE: But, well there was a one time I got saved because of my rank. Forty-five dollar man later, and then that time they caught up they said, you go. 47:00And I had six months left.

BERGE: Did you, or any of your friends, make any extra money any ways while you were in the CC?

ROWE: Yeah. There was assistant leaders got … BERGE: No, I meant not with the CC’s but other… ROWE: Oh, other money on the side.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Oh, yeah, There was a lot of that. ( ) BERGE: Make clothes?

ROWE: No, just selling them.

BERGE: That’s what I meant.

ROWE: Oh, there was all ways.

BERGE: How about money lending? A lot of money lending?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: A lot of money lending, yeah.

BERGE: How did that work?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Five per cent guys.

BERGE: Five per cent? How long did that last, till payday?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) ROWE: Pay day to pay day.

BERGE: Like the army sort of.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: They sat there and watched you just like the army.

BERGE: That guy just sitting there to watch you.

ROWE: Well, we would go through the—the rated men would go through the pay line first. 48:00BERGE: Just like in the army.

ROWE: Just like in the army. The Sergeant would go first in the army and the Staff Sergeant and then the Buck Sergeant… BERGE: You didn’t have to salute like we had in the army, did you?

ROWE: No we didn’t have to salute.

BERGE: Remember that.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I remember that, and call your serial number off.

ROWE: But we would… BERGE: Yeah, guy would sit at a little table, remember?

ROWE: But we would get paid and we would go outside and pull our little book out and when the guy come out, “Hey, I got you here for so and so.” BERGE: You had PX’s?

ROWE: Oh, yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: He was another money man.

BERGE; The PX guy? That’s what I figured that is why I asked you.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: And the Mess Sergeant, he was money, he was smart.

BERGE: Did—was 49:00there one of you who told me about the guy who made money when the people took their physicals?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: No, it wasn’t me.

BERGE: One guy was telling me one time, maybe it wasn’t anybody here, but one of the things that happened to them, when times were really bad, when they went in you really almost had to pull strings to get in. There were just so many people they would take it one time. He, this one place where he went, that every time the boy would have a physical one of these lab guys would say, “you did ok on your physical except that you’ve got sugar in your urine, and if you give me fifty cents I’ll give you a clear.” Did you hear any of that?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: No but I have heard of that.

BERGE: This one place he got fifty cents from every body that took a physical (laughs) ROWE: Everybody had fifty cents worth of sugar. 50:00It’s hard to believe that there are so many crooked things isn’t it?

BERGE: So you had really just come to the end of your time. Would you have stayed in if you could have?

ROWE: Well … BERGE: Or were you ready to get out?

ROWE: Well, I would have stayed in California, intended to stay like some of these other guys. And my mom, I was the only boy and I wrote her and told her, I only had six months left to go, and my foreman had already told me that I had a job. I could have gone to a Union Officer, or I could go–there was a big dam being built, I could go up there. And knew contractors on that—I had jobs wanted, and I was going to take it. 51:00so I wrote mom and told her. That was the biggest mistake I ever made.

BERGE: Should have stayed and told her after ROWE: But she just went off on the deep end. I think I got nine letters at one time from… BERGE: From every body around saying your mom was not going to make it.

ROWE: Well, she just flipped out.

BERGE: So… ROWE: That was after the reenlistment point and I had already reenlisted. So I went in to Caldwell, Lt. Caldwell, and I told him what had happened, “well,” he said “you had better go in home. Transfer back for your last six months,” he said, “you got a transfer there close to home.” It was twenty one miles to home.

BERGE: Where was that?

ROWE: Ah, Morehead. Ah company 78, the 52:00forestry company.

BERGE: Just stayed out the term there… ROWE: Just stayed out the term there and that satisfied mom.

BERGE: What kind of work did you do in Canton?

ROWE: I worked for Webber Dental Mfg Company. Machinist work. They made dental equipment.

BERGE: How did you find out about that work?

ROWE: Oh, I just, I went hunting for a job. And I went to the Unemployment Office in Canton, and registered, and they said they got an opening that you can go to right now if you want to. So I went up to check it and went to work then and I stayed there as long as I lived in Canton. I never was much for jumping from one job to another. When I went to a job—well the job that I retired from I was working carpenters. 53:00I worked in construction part of my life after I left Canton, I went farming, and then construction. But I was—my carpenters book—my Union Book—is over thirty-five years old now and I still got it, and draw a pension from carpenters. But I was never one to jump from one job to another. They sent me down to Drabow Construction Company, come in to set up for digging a mine, at Maysville. And they called the hall and needed two carpenters for two or three weeks to set up a temporary office. So ( ) called me, I lived pretty close to the place and he called me and—he didn’t think the job was any good or he would have sent one of his buddies. And he said, “Elmer I need two men to go down to Drabow, they are getting ready to set up an office and they need you.” 54:00Said, “you would be doing me a favor if you would go down. They got to have a Union Steward down there.” I said, “yeah, I’ll go down.” I went down there for three weeks and stayed for fourteen years.

BERGE: (laughs) Man you work slow. You learned to be a carpenter in the CCC?

ROWE: Well, I done some carpenter work, in the three C’s.

BERGE: probably must have helped you a little don’t you think?

ROWE: Well, I think most all of it. Well, when we went down there and built the camp—well it was prefabricated, but even if it is prefabricated, you can’t take common sense out of every thing. You still have to have common sense. There is no such thing in life as fool proof. There just isn’t. ( ) BERGE: ( )(laughs) ROWE: You 55:00gotta use your head a little bit on anything you go at.

BERGE: Let me just ask Mrs. Blankenship, something, I have never talked to anybody about this. Were CCC boys good customers? You said you had that restaurant around there.

MRS. BLANKENSHIP: Yes, as far as I know, they were real good. We never had any problems.

BERGE: No problems with them? They pay good?

MRS. BLANKENSHIP: Yes, yes. They were, well we tried to take them under our wing. Course I was only thirteen when they first came in there.

ROWE: She was still cute.

MRS. BLANKENSHIP: You know I was kind of young.

BERGE: Yeah, but what was your opinion of them, 56:00did you think well of them or did the local people?

MRS. BLANKENSHIP: I fell in love with him, but I never had any hopes I’d ever get him you know. But yeah, we the only thing is, the local boys sure didn’t like them.

BERGE: Yeah there is that.

ROWE: I can bring you up on one little thing on this, I know we got to be a little short here.

BERGE: No, we got time.

ROWE: When Caldwell called me in, we were going to put a camp and he was telling me, “now” he said, “there hadn’t been a camp within a hundred mile of that. Now, he said “Elmer, you know what a rough name the three C’s has got he said I want you to keep your boys straight.” He said, “I want you–you guys have to be a model out there.” BERGE: Kind of like ambassadors.

ROWE: ‘Show them people 57:00down there just how nice.’ He said, “there is a lot of churches down there,” he said, “see if you can’t get some of the boys in church.” Hah! That was something! (laughter) UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Did you know that Orland had more churches than any small town in ( ).

BERGE: Is that right.

ROWE: When we went down there, I told the guys and I picked the crew.

BERGE: When I was in the service, one of these old Sergeants told me, he said, “ young boys, if you want to meet some nice girls go to church.” he said, “you go to church and all those mothers and fathers will think you are a nice boy.” (laughter) ROWE: I don’t think that there is a one out of the twenty-five that I picked that went down there that wasn’t in church ever two weeks or something like that. Church or Sunday School, 58:00now that didn’t cure anyone from drinking, we still liked our beer and rally times, usually go into Chico for the rougher stuff. But we really did show the people that we could be nice.

BERGE: Let me ask you something, when you all were doing work in the parks and everything, did you think you were really doing some good work or did you think it was a way to … ROWE: No, I realized that the stuff—you would have to even if you had a fourth grade education or what your education might be, you could look yourself the improvement 59:00that we was making. Now if you got rock pile, and this was one way we done out there—we built a new headquarters there at Tulelake. There was a big ( ) and it was a rock where we built that. And I had a crew up there digging holes and burying the rocks to get enough dirt to grow some grass. So I got pictures in my album where it shows, and I marked it where it shows before and after. What the headquarters looked like, about three big outhouses nailed together and when we left a beautiful place, the grass was growing .

BERGE: How did you all, how were those ditches dug? The irrigation ditches? 60:00ROWE: Oh, the irrigations ditches? We had some dozers, and graders and Cats … BERGE: How big were they?

ROWE: The big ones would have been twelve foot deep.

BERGE: How wide were they?

ROWE: Oh, twenty ,thirty.

BERGE: Were these dirt?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: They were concrete on the sides.

BERGE: Keep them from washing—that is what I was wondering.

ROWE: Did you ever see them spray—putting in a concrete swimming pool?

BERGE: Hum-hun.

ROWE: Spray and what not—now some of that was done with irrigation. Some of it was just putting the concrete down, troweling it and pushing it in. You got to ( ).

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: We had square shovels, and we would take that and smooth it over and then they come by and trowel it BERGE: I was wondering 61:00how big, how long would these ditches be like?

ROWE: I never seen the end of one did you?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I never did either.

ROWE: Start one, and build the other and I never did see the end of it. Now there … BERGE: Did you put the little ditches on the side or did you… ROWE: No, we just went through the farm area and then BERGE: Somebody would take it from there.

ROWE: There was some there in Oregon between our camp and Klamath Falls, you remember that overhead—that overhead … BERGE: Like a viaduct? Not a viaduct … ROWE: Well it was a ( ), overhead irrigation where it was coming out of the mountain … BERGE: I can’t think of the word now they have them in Rome. Aqueduct, yes I said viaduct … UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: They got a ditch all the way through Sacramento Valley now.

BERGE: Huh-hum.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Right into L.A. 62:00BERGE: Are there still some of the ditches you all built?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: They are larger now.

BERGE: Like rivers almost. But they are essentially--are built the same way you were building them back … ROWE: I think basically the same way.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: We built through Sacramento and we used ( ) equipment ( ) scrapers, tractors.

BERGE: What of the kind of work that you did--reclamation work like that, or park work, what did you like to do best.

ROWE: I liked the park work the best, ‘cause there was more beautiful stuff around the park than there was around the irrigation ditches.

BERGE: So you probably were aware that maybe—you were probably doing as much or more good than when you were working in a place building these irrigation ditches though?

ROWE: I don’t know 63:00BERGE: More fun in the park is that it?

ROWE: Was a lot more fun for me because you had that scenery, you know. I don’t know ever since I was—I liked my mom cause she ( ), but I still like her a whole lot, and ever since then I like to look at pretty things. I always thought mom was pretty and as I got older I seen things that was prettier.

BERGE: Now what am I going to do with these X-rated tapes. (laughter).

ROWE: I liked the parks the best the scenery and the environment.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: There were more girls around.

ROWE: I have never see the place or the time that Cumberland Falls … END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ONE ROWE END OF INTERVIEW.