Oral History Interview with R.C. "Pete" Sutton

WILLIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed taped interview with Mr. R. C. Sutton, of Wilmington, North Carolina. The interview is conducted by William Berge for the Kentucky Historical Commission, at Cumberland Falls State Park, on October 7, 1990, at One PM. Mr. Sutton, I guess I can call you Pete?

R. C. SUTTON: Right, that’s it.

BERGE: Start by telling me your full name, and where you were born, and when you were born.

SUTTON: Robert Clyde Sutton, and I was born May the 4th, 1919.

BERGE: Where?

SUTTON: Ah, Elizabethtown, closest town was Elizabethtown, North Carolina.

BERGE: Huh-huh. 1919. Where did you go to school?

SUTTON: Hickory Grove and Garland.

BERGE: In North Carolina?

SUTTON: Right. Hickory Grove Elementary and Garland High School.

BERGE: Did you graduate high school?

SUTTON: No.

BERGE: What year did you leave high school?

SUTTON: I left 1:00in thirty-eight.

BERGE: What year were you in school then?

SUTTON: What year?

BERGE: Huh-huh.

SUTTON: I was going up—I would have been in the eleventh grade the next year; but I lost a year in school. I had hydrophobia—I had to go take a hydrophobia treatment for a mad cat, and I lost the seventh grade.

BERGE: You were bit by a dog?

SUTTON: A cat … BERGE: When you had those …{they are talking over each other}

SUTTON: Twenty-on shots ( ) they were miserable.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. Tell me, when you left high school, did you go right in the three C’s or …?

SUTTON: Well, I went in the next year. I failed English … BERGE: Huh-huh.

SUTTON: I failed English in the tenth grade you know, that put me going to school another year; our house burned, 2:00and I didn’t actually have clothes to wear to school. And a friend of mine—well, a cousin of mine, he was—I failed English in the eleventh grade, that’s what it was. So, I wouldn’t go back to school—I wouldn’t go back to school another year. I just don’t know. That’s sort of frozen—I wouldn’t go up to school another year.

BERGE: What did you do in that year when you were out>?

SUTTON: Ah, farm—worked around on the farm. You know, things like that.

BERGE: What—when did you decide to go in the CC’s?

SUTTON: Along about December that year.

BERGE: What did you know about the CC’s?

SUTTON: Well, I knew it was a great thing for me, I furthered my education. I went on, and I took classes from—I never saw a typewriter till I went in the C’s, and I don’t know, if you could imagine what my first class was.

BERGE: Typing?

SUTTON: Typing. The lady that filled me out to go to the C’s did it with a yellow lead pencil, she didn’t even have a typewriter.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

SUTTON: So I went on, I went right 3:00up--they ( ) me on in January, I believe it was. In the first quarter, got right down to my cousin and myself—the one that suggest that we go to the C’s. And that’s it boys, we got what we need. ( ) in April I more or less went on back home to my father and mother, and I got back there, and there was three young mules in the lot; three years old when I got back. I mean, I hadn’t been gone but about eight hours. Went out to the White Lake where there was a camp, that is where they inducted us from and so , I was really enthused with those mules.

BERGE: Huh-huh. (laughs) SUTTON: I took one—took to one of them and helped break her. And so in April, about the middle of March, I got a call to report to White Lake again the Fifth of April. 4:00BERGE: What year was that now?

SUTTON: That was thirty-nine.

BERGE: What did you all do there, at White Lake?

SUTTON: They just inducted us there. Then they carried us from there to Salisbury, North Carolina, and we planted Kudzu and trees, cut wood and general things around there.

BERGE: So you worked with the Forest Service then?

SUTTON: I worked with the SCS. No, I was not in the Forestry. So, from that I went to—I was put on an advance—well, get back a little bit more. When I first went in they found out I was pretty good with the tools, screw driver and things like that. And the old boy come down one day, and he says, “do you want to just ( )?” (laughs) He was from Georgia, they called him Mose, he was a leader. 5:00And he looked like he didn’t know which way was up, and get out of the rain. In other words, he was operating with about two sandwiches short of a picnic.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: And he come out there on the woodpile, and we was sawing wood to heat the barracks and cook with. That’s what we cooked with and everything.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

SUTTON: And he says, “which one of you fellas can drive a pick-up?” The hands went up, but I also, I had two years of CMPC, you know, and I knew what those pick-ups were. Here a few minutes they come back, had a wheel barrow, pushing them.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: And shovels, you know pick up a shovel and a wheel barrow. So I ( ) cross cut sawing wood, and 6:00course I wore glasses. Just a few minute Mose, he come back and said, “how many of you fellas know anything about--how many of you--Sparky, you know anything about electrical work? I still … BERGE: Yeah, you didn’t fall for it.

SUTTON: I didn’t fall for it. But he looked over, and he said, “hey, you Speck come here.” And I’d a--I’d made a fixture or a receptacle, or something, in the barracks and so he said, “Speck come here.” He says, “ you go up there to the Recreation Hall.” “Oh,” he said, “ carpenter work and Sparkey,” is what he said. So one of the boys had come in with me and myself, he pointed us out, he says, “go up to the Recreation Hall. They are sealing it with plywood,” he says, “go up there and help them fellas up there.” I got up there and we stayed all during that cool weather around there in the hills of North Carolina. We stayed in that Recreation Hall putting up plywood and electrical work. We 7:00put—took the fixtures down, put up plywood, then put them back up. Stayed right around there till it warmed up.

BERGE: Warmed up? (laughs) SUTTON: So I –they sent us out on detail, that was planting Kudzu … BERGE: They planted that Kudzu did they?

SUTTON: Yes, sir BERGE: Are you responsible for all that? (laughter) SUTTON: The CC boys—the CC boys cussed for that—one thing they cuss them for.

BERGE: Oh, dear.

SUTTON: And—but … BERGE: I didn’t know you planted all that stuff.

SUTTON: We did. All these road banks, and fields, and terraces, you see the old CC boys, that was a brand new invention. So we went out 8:00one place, Mr. White of White Packing Company, Salisbury, North Carolina, we did a lot of work on his farm. Well, I didn’t, ‘cause I got away from there … BERGE: Hum-hum. But then your group did.

SUTTON: My group did. And they would build terraces. Heard a man say, running rings around the fields, but he didn’t even know what they were talking about, anyone that talked ( ). But what we did, they built terraces. And they outletted them into the forest, for the woods, so to speak, or into the meadow. But they only had a two foot, a two inch drop every one hundred foot, and we ran those terraces around—we ran those terraces around those inclines.

BERGE: The inclines.

SUTTON: And only a two foot drop and we surveyed them. I even helped do that. I mean that is the reason I got away. I mean I was ( )—see I was fair two things like that, 9:00and there was quite a few boys that they didn’t care; and they didn’t pick up and get into classes. But they would find out what you knew. They would check how far you went in high school and all that kind of stuff. But this cousin of mine, he was just immediately dropped into the supply room. Ah, yeah, but I was more or less interested in the mechanical stuff and outside.

BERGE: Hum-hum. Did you take any classes?

SUTTON: Yeah. I’m coming’ right to it.

BERGE: Ok.

SUTTON: Well, after that I took classes in the electrical field, mechanical, woodworking, everything. I mean everything I could, I was interested—like typing I took that. Course I can’t type a lick now, my wife can , but I can’t. Well, right after that we got—and 10:00I’m going back now, I am going there from here. We—I was on an advanced crew to build a new camp. They tore the camp down that—but in three months we had that camp all fixed up. They tore it down and dismantled it and shipped it somewhere further on up in the hills. And we got a brand new camp down at Peaceland, North Carolina, that was a second camp.

BERGE: Where is that?

SUTTON: Peaceland? Know where Charlotte is? Charlotte, North Carolina?

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: It is forty-four miles south of Charlotte on seventy-four.

BERGE: What did you do? Same kind of work?

SUTTON: No, sir. I was a big shot then.

BERGE: Ok.

SUTTON: So, you know, I was kidding about that—don’t put that in there if you write this up.

BERGE: Yeah. I know.

SUTTON: I was on this advanced crew. We had this leader 11:00he was an LEM.

BERGE: Yeah. One of those Local … SUTTON: No, he didn’t, he stayed in the camp all the time. He was a CC, at forty-five dollars a month. And they assembled us one morning, one Monday morning, and I had helped dismantle that camp, and ( ) the tents. He said, “Red,” I went by the names of Red, and Speck, and RC. And he said, “Red , you get on that truck. You did it to some people.” BERGE: You didn’t know where you were going either, did you?

SUTTON: Didn’t know nuthin.’ And they took us, and hauled us about a half a day in August, maybe more than that and they took us to Peaceland, North Carolina. An old abandoned cotton gin, and put us in that. We took it easy the rest of the day and went down to this creek. Took a bath, and they said, “we are going to build a new camp.” Still the same company, 12:00and there was about sixty of us that had been put on that advanced, or detached crew come from Salisbury to Peaceland. Well, Salisbury was about forty miles from Charlotte, North Carolina, but we just went a little bit further south and went out in the rock field. Right in the blazing sun the next morning and we started getting--cleaning away places. Smoothing down places to build our new camp. And some places that camp—the barracks, one end of them was about twelve or fourteen off of the ground and at the other end was right down on the ground.

BERGE: Was right down on ground level. 13:00SUTTON: So, but we put our Recreation Hall, we put it right across the hill, like that so it would be level; didn’t have to climb too high to get in it. And then, this same leader came over to me, and we were living in this old cotton gin. Bivouacking, I reckon is what you would call it, and had all our cooking gear, we slept and cooked in the same room, we had a one room shack.

BERGE: Yeah, a big one.

SUTTON: Yeah. And of course, this cousin of mine, he was the supply—he was advanced supply man.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

SUTTON: Rather than sleep with all those boys, and all that cooking and everything, he invited me out to sleep with him in another one of the warehouses; where all the supplies was. And I had a little gravy train there. And that is what we called taking it easy.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: And so, here come the first load of barrack—of building materials, which was … BERGE: They were pre-fab weren’t they?

SUTTON: Yeah, they were built in Biloxi Mississippi.

BERGE: Is that where they were built?

SUTTON: Built in Biloxi, 14:00Mississippi. I helped with the assembling of those barracks till they got some of them up. This same leader came up, “hey, Red.” He always called me Red, I slept in his barracks. “Red, come here,” he said, “ see that man over yonder?” And he was an ugly, old, mean man. (laughs) You know you’ve seen people that you … BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: He was an awful looking man. An old big jacket on—it was getting a little cool then you know, and he had an old big jacket on—he says, “go over there, come on over here, come on over here.” He said, “I want 15:00you to work with this man over here.” He said, “he is going to wire this camp, he’s got the contract.” BERGE: And they knew you were an electrician.

SUTTON: Oh, they knew it. Oh, I almost got killed at Salisbury when we were wiring those tents.

BURGE: Oh, yeah.

SUTTON: And then they found—they knew it, a little bit about it. I think maybe my cousin might have told them you know, course I don’t know how they knew anything about it. He might have told them, that I knew a little bit about it, that I was pretty—but course I definitely didn’t put that on anything when I signed in. When they said what do you do, I said farm. That was it.

BURGE: Yeah. yeah.

SUTTON: But I had been around electrical contracting, go out fix a water pump. Go out with the power company, with the ah—ah—oh, service man. And White Lake, did you ever hear of White Lake, in North Carolina?

BURGE: No.

SUTTON: Well it is a summer resort. Course now, they live there year round. But he picked me up and carried me around with him to pull the meters; pull all the meters and carry then in to the main office. And 16:00pick me up, and carry me out to help set up poles. He was working by himself, nobody had a job.

BURGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: And had a Model A Ford, that was what—what he used for a service wagon. And I got over there with this big old man, I mean he was a big one too. And he told me he said, “I am with Harley Electric in Monroe, North Carolina. Which was about, oh, I would have to sort of work it up—I reckon about twelve to eighteen miles away and he come down there ever day. I said, “well, you own that company?” He was sort of young, but he was a big ugly man. And I said—he said, “my father owns it, I work for my father.” And I started putting up in the barracks—we went and started 17:00to baulk stuff in, it was already cut, pre-fab. We would just take it in, and roll it out, and put it up and put the fixtures up and that was about the extent of the electrical work inside; but we could—everything went right in place. I thought that was the most amazing thing, I ever … BERGE: That was about the beginning of the thing wasn’t it?

SUTTON: Oh, pre-fab, yeah. I thought that was the most amazing thing I ever saw in my life, you know. We’d stick build buildings and stuff like that where I come from. Pick up ever piece set it up and nail it down. I though that was the most amazing thing I ever saw. Well, we got rid of the ( ) utility lines around the barracks and through the camp. We’d go down in the woods, ( ) and we would cut these long pine trees, and I can’t tell you how we got them out there. I do not remember 18:00that, but we would trim them up, just like trimming up a bean stick or something, you know what a bean stick it?

BERGE: Yeah. They might have had another crew or something come in there and … SUTTON: I really don’t know, but we got the trees and green trees—we didn’t have no creosote. We’d climb those poles—I climbed those poles—I dug those holes … BERGE: And put the poles in.

SUTTON: I had to get somebody to help me. I couldn’t do that. But they didn’t have anything like a line truck or a big boom to set them with. I dug the holes and who set them in the holes I do not know. But that is what he had me—I dug those holes out there. Ever one of them he didn’t dig a one of them.

BERGE: You were by yourself out there?

SUTTON: Oh, he was doing something else, and watching me work.

BERGE: Yeah. I know. I know.

SUTTON: You know—the help with a new man he ( ). But before 19:00I left Salisbury I had made a application to go in the garage, you know, drive a truck. I wanted to drive a truck. But he—after that I decided I would do something else. We got all that done. All those poles set, climbed them with a ladder, run the wire, hooked them into the barracks. Run the drops to the barracks, mess halls and they really called me one day to ( ). Come down and go get that red-headed fella out there on them poles. And one of the carpenters had drove a nail through a piece of VX cable.

BURGE: Hum.

SUTTON: And they didn’t know what was wrong and by look I found it. I didn’t do a thing in the world about it. How to look for it or anything—nineteen years old,--I didn’t know how to look for trouble in the wire. I saw that nail, it was at the bottom and it went out through the ( ). Pull that nail out, didn’t even have to change the wire.

BURGE: Didn’t have to ( ) or anything?

SUTTON: Just pulled that nail out 20:00and went back to work. What he did, he drove a nail and it went between those two wires and it grounded them together.

BURGE: Through the nail. Huh-huh.

SUTTON: And to that cable.

BURGE: I bet they thought you were a genius when you did this.

SUTTON: Man, I was something else. And I’ve got—went to—after all this was done, and we got back to where we could go to school at night, education building.

BURGE: Things settled down then SUTTON: Yeah. Got the educational building going, and got their wood working shop in. I saw all those beautiful tables and bowls and rolling pins, you know what a rolling pin it?

BURGE: You ( ) were making. 21:00SUTTON: Oh, man. I started making rolling pins, magazine racks, stuff like that. Sent my daddy—I made him a little cedar chest to put his shaving stuff in at home. And so, in fact, I got a straight razor along with me today that my daddy had. But I made him a little cedar chest, to put his—I made nut bowls, and things like that and sent them home. Magazine racks, and sent them home and I learned a little bit about doing carpenter work, in that way. But in the meantime, in the daytime, I was over at the garage, and I got out of all this KP and stuff, you know, being at the garage and working in there and going to school. We went to school in that garage. Every morning we had a hour of class, just like they did in high school. You know have a—I believe our classes were forty-five minutes in high school, I can’t remember. But we had an hour—all those fellas 22:00that took mechanics—we had an hour of class work.

BERGE: Every day?

SUTTON: Every day. Five days a week. Saturday and Sunday we were—we had an hour, so we had a real speed wagon, the trucks.

BERGE: Oh, yeah, I remember those.

SUTTON: Yeah. Were you a CC’er?

BERGE: No.

SUTTON: You remember the wheels.

BERGE: Oh, yeah I remember them.

SUTTON: And I learned how to do early days body work. Take a piece of metal, if you had a ( ) behind it, you didn’t have to weld it. If you didn’t know how to weld, or couldn’t weld, put that strip of metal behind it, counter sink the screws and put lead or ( ) or what have you over it. And, but now we got all different kinds of ( ) to do those things with. And I took that mechanics class, and during the time I wrote everything I—I wrote 23:00it—I wrote it in a notebook and when my oldest son was sixteen years old I gave him that book.

BERGE: Huh.

SUTTON: He can build—he can make a car. He can go to the junk yard and he can get anything. You don’t want me to tell you about him do you?

BERGE: No, no, we’ll ( ).

SUTTON: We’ll cut that out then, but he’s good.

BERGE: When—what ever gave you the idea to keep this kind of record?

SUTTON: Well, I was just sort of—I don’t know.

BERGE: Were you excited about it or what.

SUTTON: Well, yeah, I was learning something. And this man, he didn’t have any text books or things like that. He was—he didn’t have any text books to give us on the Reo real speed wagon and this that and the other. One of things he told us, he said, “if you never use this,” he says, “if you get out into the world, and you have a car”—none 24:00of us ever dreamed of having a car. Thirty dollars a month and we only got eight of it—I did, some of them said they started out and got five. But the rest went back home to your family.

BERGE: Hum-hum SUTTON: And we were that—we were that poor you know.

BERGE: Oh, yeah.

SUTTON: Those three young mules I was telling you about. They were not paid for when I got back, it took three years to pay for those things.

BERGE: I bet it really helped your family though to have that money coming in.

SUTTON: To have that money coming in to buy something with. And I am telling you the truth, I left four at home; four sisters and brothers at home when I left. One brother and three sisters, and I--but we got out of debt with mechanics. And I kept right on, and they came along, after you got settled down. They had this man who was an electrical man or contractor, he came in the afternoon, you got out of work to go to class. That was a great thing. I think that was the way it went. I can’t remember 25:00all the details about it. We got out of work, to go to that class and he would take us out to the country on the REA line, that is the Rural Electrification, you know about that? He would take us out on the REA lines out in the country there and we would wire houses for people. We didn’t get a dime out of it, except the education, but I figured out later … BERGE: I bet he did.

SUTTON: We wired the houses, he got the money we… BERGE: You learned doing it though.

SUTTON: We got the education.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: And—but I ( ) just about the time that I was ready to get out of camp and I went down to Fort Bragg, North 26:00Carolina, and I got me a job. I walked right into it.

BERGE: Did it help you get that job, the CCC’s, you think?

SUTTON: Are you kidding? I would never have gone there if I hadn’t. And I worked—I worked the CCC. Now here is the great part about it. I never worked as a helper—I never worked as a helper or an apprentice. Three years—I mean three months, when I went to work down at Fort Bragg, I moved with the work with the A. J. Jenkins Electrical—Heating and Electrical Contractor out of Roanoke North Carolina. And his foreman—I will never forget one day, he had a man up there working and he didn’t know how to put in a switch leg. And I told him so and so and so, and about that time I heard a voice bark from behind me, he says, “what’s the matter here?” He says, “if that man don’t know how to do that,” 27:00he said, “don’t you tell him.” He said, “I will take him down from up there and let you do it.” Well I thought he was mad at me. But what he was, he was mad at the man who was supposed to be my boss. Did not know what he was doing. And I went—got into another situation—an army Colonel ( ). I just boom, boom, boom right on in, in civilian life and … BERGE: Most of it is related to how you start.

SUTTON: That’s exactly right. I had never—I had no idea that I would be drawing top position. Move right in and 28:00less than a year—less than a year after I left the CC’s, old Sutton, he was the top go. I mean I was running—working for the other man. But I was running my own show for him.

BERGE: What was that company again?

SUTTON: A. J. Jenkins Heating and Electric, that is the way he put it.

BERGE: How long did you stay with him?

SUTTON: I stayed with him about sixty days, oh, no it was longer than that. And they ran out of material ( ). So I went to Wilmington and went to work with ( ) Metal Works. I worked just a temporary job, and I moved out of that and went around and went to work for ( ) Electric. No, I went to White’s Ice Cream, just filling in and before the summer was over—well, before hot weather came again, I got out in April. Before hot weather came again, I was by myself, you see. Instead of having to work for the other, and I got the—I got the 29:00, I went right on up. And as soon as the war was over I got myself a electrical contractors license—I got an unlimited electrical contractors license.

BERGE: And you really learned that trade—I guess you learned it in the CC?

SUTTON: Basically. It started off as an interest and got me in the CCC’s.

BERGE: Later on when you worked as an electrical contractor did you have many people working for you? The most that ever worked for me was ten. I believe … BERGE: Did you ever have anybody that was in the CCC?

SUTTON: Never had a one. Never had a one. Really it was hard to run into anybody—and I talked to a lot of people, I don’t know why they wouldn’t admit that they were in the CCC. 30:00Unless it was because of the fact that they were ashamed they were poor. And you know—it has just been in the last twenty years, that people or even the general public, would say that the CCC was one of the most important things that ever came out of DC.

BERGE: It really was though wasn’t it?

SUTTON: It was. Because we, of the CCC, of all the programs they had brought the nation out of the depression. And then… BERGE: It not only helped the young men who were in it, but their families too.

SUTTON: Now, one boy, he is a retired school teacher. He couldn’t have been if it hadn’t been for his older brother going into the C’s and sending that twenty-five dollars back home. His brother was sending back twenty-five dollars, and he lived in Cheyenne, Wyoming. But now, he is proud of the fact that he went in the C’s 31:00and he—I don’t know how rich that guy is—he just went out, and he is a North Carolinian, and he has a great situation out there.

BERGE: Now you boys were—you never left North Carolina in the C’s did you?

SUTTON: Well, we got off on getting discharged. Yes, I did. I went—this carpenter work … BERGE: ( ).

SUTTON: In December of 1940, they sent me out on a—I don’t know what to call it a loan … BERGE: Hold on let me just turn this over.

END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE SUTTON BEGIN SIDE TWO TAPE ONE SUTTON 32:00BERGE: You were telling me, that in late forties you went out on loan somewhere, tell me what that was.

SUTTON: That was December, December the First about. I was on a loan to Rock Hill, or Spartanburg, South Carolina, I can’t remember which one it was, but they were down there close together. I went out to Spartanburg South Carolina, ten of us, they loaned us to the nursery. That was a nursery to camp, where they grew all those ritzy plants and trees (laughter), and what have you.

BERGE: I’ll bet you are proud of those Kudzus when you drive through there.

SUTTON: Oh, really, I went back home and I planted them on our place where they had all those wash-outs.

BERGE: It did keep them from washing out.

SUTTON: It did. 33:00And of course, my brother, he doesn’t like it. But I stayed with that, there was ten of us, they carried –we went down on Sunday, and the First of January, Sutton was the only one that went back. The others went over the hill.

BERGE: They didn’t like it, huh?

SUTTON: They didn’t like working in that nursery. They was—they were out gathering plants, and bunching them. I believe it was a hundred to the bunch. Whatever. But they were out in the nursery, out in the open nursery, out in that cold weather. And they were gathering those plants, bunching them … BERGE: What were you doing?

SUTTON: I was in the carpenter shop making creates. (laughter) BERGE: ( ) SUTTON: Well, that it, what I tell you, those classes. But those boys that were out there. They were the type that would lay down … BERGE: And didn’t take the classes.

SUTTON: And didn’t take the classes.

BERGE: When 34:00you were in the C’s, what did you all do for—you know, recreation, and that kind of stuff?

SUTTON: We played baseball, volley ball, and something else; I didn’t know what volley ball was. Pool, I can’t think of what the other game was, it’s a little table that … BERGE: Ping-pong.

SUTTON: Ping-pong! Table tennis, we played ping-pong-,pool, cards, horse-shoes, we’d get out under the barrack, especially in that new camp, and we’d get out and we’d play—several could play an instrument, I could play a harmonica and … BERGE: Was there much rough stuff like fighting and that kind of stuff? 35:00SUTTON: Not much. I mean people—they really wouldn’t let you … BERGE: They wouldn’t let … SUTTON: They wouldn’t let you fight. I mean unless it just sort of got to be a really bunch you know.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: But if you stayed, I’m not bragging, if you stayed in the server group, not much fighting going on. No fighting. But now, those boys that hit the bottle, they got into things, and usual thing they would get a dishonorable discharges.

BERGE: They kicked them out pretty quick didn’t they?

SUTTON: If you caused trouble--if you caused trouble, you might as well—your train ticket was waiting.

BERGE: Huh-hum.

SUTTON: And they didn’t have no problem getting out if you caused trouble.

BERGE: But most of the guys you were with, were local boys from North Carolina and South Carolina?

SUTTON: Oh, well, I’d say yes. Maybe they got a one down in Tennessee, but now, if you wanted to, you could get to the west coast. But I could never get to go to the west coast. I reckon cause they wanted to keep me to (laughs) … BERGE: They liked your work.

SUTTON: That’s what I say 36:00if you kept your nose clean, you got along fine. That’s just a slang expression.

BERGE: What, in addition to, obviously the big thing to you was, you really set up your whole life, by being in the three C’s, I mean really, if you … SUTTON: It was one of the greatest—I never would have gotten … BERGE: What else could you say good about it? What were some other things that were good about it, in addition to training you for your life’s work?

SUTTON: Well it taught you how to live with people.

BERGE: Yeah, that was a big thing wasn’t it?

SUTTON That’s right, and how to get along with them and then work together. You know working on the farm with your sisters and brothers and mother and father, that’s not 37:00… BERGE: Yeah. Yeah, that’s not getting along.

SUTTON: That’s not very—course you had to get along with your father ‘cause he would take a stick to you.

BERGE: ( ) SUTTON: No, ( ) he would let you know you had it. Ah, not only that the boys--that the boys that ( )--when they went out of the C’s, you know they were just finishing it. A lot of them--and some of them were still in when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

BURGE: Yeah. And they went right in the army didn’t they?

SUTTON: Right in, and they say they were some of the best soldiers that ever were. I said it was because they had learned to work together, and live together so they could go right in, and fight together.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: They might argue and stuff like that, this is just a little example. They might argue, and might even slap each other around a little bit, or short-sheet his bunk, or turn him our of his bunk at night. But if they got out, and say the crew in town, and that was a bad situation too you know. Those young boys, or young men in town they didn’t like … BURGE: They didn’t like… SUTTON: They didn’t like the CC boys.

BURGE: Why not? Because of the girls?

SUTTON: That CC insignia? I don’t know it just meant a lot to those girls. A uniform, 38:00a uniform—a girl—people say they are bad girls, but a uniform attracts the female; and they cussed us from every—I mean Mother they really put it on.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: But I learned to wear a CC uniform with respect, and the civilians they did not like it. But a lot of people today they see us, and they say really they had great respect, but then there were others that did not.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. I can remember, I was just a little younger than you and I can remember, my real contact with the 39:00CCC was that, there was a kid that lived across the street from me that I played with; and his older brother went in the CC’s. Boy, we thought he was the biggest thing that ever—the biggest deal we had ever heard of you know, to know somebody that was in that.

SUTTON: When he come home in that uniform, he was something else wasn’t he?

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah, he was.

SUTTON: Well, I always wanted to wear as uniform.

BERGE: Did you go home much when you were in the CC’s?

SUTTON: Oh, I could go home. I could go home every week if I had five dollars; because there was a boy—there was a boy there a Salisbury, and he worked for this White Packing Company, and he had a thirty-six Ford. Believe it or not, he would take five boys besides himself, and he would drive that hundred or so miles it was and carry them home. Go back to Salisbury, and go back and get ‘em. He’d go back and get them Sunday afternoon.

BERGE: Yeah.

SUTTON: And have them there Monday morning.

BERGE: So you could really go home and visit if you really wanted to?

SUTTON: Yeah. But 40:00I didn’t go. I—I guess I went home the end of two years. I guess I went home—oh, maybe, half a dozen times. See my mother and we all, every week we wrote back. Maybe ten times I went home in two years. ‘Cause I didn’t have—all I got was eight dollars a month and you had to pay—course you pay a dollar to get home.

BERGE: Did you—how many children did you have?

SUTTON: Me? I have four.

BERGE: Did you tell them about the CCC’s and all that sort of thing?

SUTTON: Oh, yeah. Yes, sir.

BERGE: They know about it.

SUTTON: They know that is where pop got his start. I mean that is exactly, how I feel. I tell people that is how I got it. One man told me, he says, “where you got your start was a couple 41:00of wore out old dump trucks.” I had dump trucks and he drove one of them, and then he came on in to be an electrician too. And he got to work with the—you don’t want to hear about that.

BERGE: Yeah. But I mean you really got your start in the CCC’s didn’t you?

SUTTON: I got—he told me I got my start with those old dump trucks I had. I just had other people to drive them for me.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

SUTTON: That’s where I learned. That’s where I learned.

BERGE: Are you retired now?

SUTTON: I’m—I’m enjoying my—I’m enjoying my retirement. But I am still running my business.

BERGE: Oh, you are?

SUTTON: This trip, one job paid for it. Well, a couple of … BERGE: You can leave it though?

SUTTON: Oh, I can leave it, I got two sons.

BERGE: And they run it do the …?

SUTTON: I got two sons, who also have a contractors license, and one of them is with the Inspection Department in my county. 42:00BERGE: (laughs) That helps.

SUTTON: That helps. No he just—he will be forty—what is today?

BERGE: Today is the Seventh.

SUTTON: He will be forty-six years old Saturday, and my wife just called me. I don’t know if we will get back to get with him you know. But I have a class reunion BERGE: High school class?

SUTTON: Class reunion, I’ll tell you something else. My education in the CCC and my credentials—they--now, I am running the class of thirty-eight myself.

BERGE: From your high school?

SUTTON: Yeah.

BERGE: That’s nice.

SUTTON: I mean--and one of the boys is a preacher, Baptist preacher. And he and I—he and I run the show in the class now. Of course, we got two hold-outs, sorta, they were trouble makers in school. But they don’t like it because they put me--not having failing a subject, and not getting a diploma like they did, but 43:00then all the rest of them even the school teachers, that’s in the class, he respects my diploma from the CCC.

BERGE: Yeah.

SUTTON: And I got it.

BERGE: Did many boys get diplomas in the CCC’s?

SUTTON: I don’t know. I mean I just know what I … BERGE: I know ( ) or one other, one other.

SUTTON: Oh, I am the only one that I know that finished their education in the CCC.

BERGE: Well, there was one, I don’t know who it was, but somebody I talked to today. Because you are the only one I talked to. But I knew that a lot of them went to school in it though.

SUTTON: Well, see we had the first camp was Catalba College, there the teachers came over from Catalba. The next camp, it was Wynyard College, which is a Baptist college. 44:00Preachers get their degree—ah their license … BERGE: License.

SUTTON: And that college was just about half way—I’d say it was probably eight miles from there. One of the girls that taught us, their home was right at the end of the CC property, we had leased. So she was home every night. She come that eight miles home and teach that night.

BERGE: And teach that night. Yeah. How much was someone paid to do that?

SUTTON: What?

BERGE: I wonder how much they were paid to do that?

SUTTON: I have no idea. But it couldn’t have been—nobody got any … BERGE: Nobody got any money then, no.

SUTTON: You take wiring a house for fifty cents an outlet. Now that boy he wasn’t making a whole lot but he was making—he might have made three dollars on a—no he might have gotten fifteen dollars to wire … BERGE: A house.

SUTTON: A house. You just think about that it cost you fifteen hundred.

BERGE: He wouldn’t come over 45:00and talk to you about it … SUTTON: He wouldn’t even answer the telephone. (laughter) But now he was our teacher. He came to teach us our class with ( ). No a teacher wouldn’t think about going to—to teach a—I reckon they would though. I mean, according to what he was teaching, and I even got the call to go out to Whiteville. Whiteville, and went so far as put an application in to teach installation at the community college at Whiteville, North Carolina—this was about eight oh, no this was in seventy-four, to come out and teach. To teach.

BERGE: Fifteen years ago.

SUTTON: Yeah. 46:00To come out and teach electrical installation, and then the next year they gave me a call to come out. But I didn’t even go then. They didn’t—it was a long ways, about fifty some miles. Fifty-nine miles.

BERGE: Where are you going from here today?

SUTTON: I am going from here today, out here on seventy-five and I am going toward Peakville, North Carolina where I discharged from the C’s.

BERGE: You are going down and look at that place, huh?

SUTTON: Well, I‘ve been there several times, back in there—I was there two weeks ago yesterday BERGE: Can you see where the place was?

SUTTON: Oh, yes. And we will park our camper, if we get there tonight sometime. We will park our camper right in this old cotton gin, it is still standing.

BERGE: Where they stayed that night?

SUTTON: Where we stayed that night—where we stayed our three months.

BERGE: Well, you didn’t stay there too long, you stayed with your cousin in that other one.

SUTTON: Well, no we stayed on the same ground the gin--the warehouse—the 47:00gin—the gin was where they had the—the cooking and eating and sleeping. The creek, about a mile away to take our baths, and we hauled water from some—I don’t know where. But this was a warehouse, right just cross maybe from here to the front of the building.

BERGE: Whatever happened to that cousin of yours that went in with you?

SUTTON: Well, I hate to say it, he was a book man, and Normandy when they invaded at Normandy, we went to CMPC at Fort Bragg together. When you graduated from CMPC you were a Second Lieutenant, and he was Captain White; and he was a book man and the old expression—I better not say this—you 48:00might—well, I will say it, he was one if the book said squat … BERGE: Yeah he squatted.

SUTTON: He squatted. And if he told one of his men to squat he meant squat and start straining.

BERGE: Yeah.

SUTTON: And he didn’t make it, you know.

BERGE: Did he get killed at Normandy?

SUTTON: He was killed. And I don’t know—whether—I have thought in my mind … BERGE: That one of his men killed him?

SUTTON: It happens. You know a train--a trainer—called a TI—they never sent them to combat, because they would … BERGE: They would run into somebody that … SUTTON: They would kill him. They would get them out there. It’s just like—it’s true. I hate to say it, but I don’t I believe I could kill a man unless he was going to do something to me. But I have been teaching—about the people that were over me at the moment, I might have put a baseball bat or something over them.

BERGE: Yeah. That could very well happen. That could very well happen.

SUTTON: But he was Captain White 49:00and—but I was in defense work, I never did go.

BERGE: Huh-huh. You did ( ) work all through the war?

SUTTON: Right. I was--I was a repairing welding machines and stuff like that, taking care of the welding equipment—electric welding. And my boss came to me in late forty-one—I’m telling you, I got out of the C’s in April of forty-one and I told you I went right—just kept right on up there with jobs with contractors.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

SUTTON: And I went to—I went to Wilmington on the twenty-ninth, in Model A Ford 50:00and my brother came down then. And I just walked right on up. And before—before forty-two, I was already shooting—shooting my own gun. And my boss came to me and he says, “now if you get a call,” he says, “now don’t think you are not doing a worth cause—in a worthy cause here.” He says, “if they call you,” he says, “ you come right straight to me.” He says, “I’ll get you a deferment.” He says, “you look out for me and I will look out for you.” And really the truth of the matter is, I didn’t want anybody to come over here and shoot at my people, but I didn’t want to go overseas and be shot myself, either. And when I took that CMPC training, I didn’t know what I was getting into. I didn’t know what war was about.

BERGE: Hum-hum. Yeah SUTTON: But now, I did not volunteer. And I stayed out, and I did get a call to come and come on back to Fort Bragg ( ) (laughs). 51:00But I kept my job in defense work. And I think I did just as well ..

BERGE: Actually you probably made more of a contribution where you were than if you sent in the military.

SUTTON: That is exactly what he said.

BERGE: yeah.

SUTTON: He said your contribution here is as good, or better than you would be getting shot at and killed.

BERGE: Mr. Sutton, I really want to thank you, and I know you have to get on I-75, and I have to go up I-75, and I’m due to get our of here now too. I really want to thank you again, for telling me this. It is going to be a big help for us.

SUTTON: Well, I might be a rambler talking, but I’ve had a great experience to-night.

BERGE: It’s been really good.

END OF SIDE TWO TAPE ONE SUTTON END OF INTERVIEW