Oral History Interview with Roy Williams

WILLIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed tape interview with Mr. Roy Williams of Hemet, California. The interview is conducted by William Berge for the Kentucky Oral History Commission, at Cumberland Falls State Park on October 6, 1990, at eight AM. Mr. Williams, I want to start out by having you tell me your full name, and where you were born, and when you were born.

ROY WILLIAMS: My name is Roy Williams. I was born May 11, 1909, in Crossett, Arkansas.

BERGE: Down in the pine country.

WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. Had a big lumber company there and now it is a paper mill. Huh… BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. I used to live in huh, Monticello, Arkansas.

WILLIAMS: Monticello? Yeah, I know where that is. Near Pine Bluff. But I don’t remember 1:00that we left—my father left he was from New Albany, Indiana and my mother was from Kentucky. So we moved back to Kentucky and that is where I was raised.

BERGE: What was your father’s name?

WILLIAMS: Walter Williams.

BERGE: And what about ( ) Indiana?

WILLIAMS: New Albany, Indiana.

BERGE: And your mother’s name?

WILLIAMS: Lilly Williams, ah, Lilly Storey, was her name before she married my father. And… BERGE: Storey?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. And she was born, out in the country in Marshall County, near Paducah.

BERGE: Ok. Ok. What kind of work did you father do—where did you move to when you came back to Kentucky? Whereabouts in Kentucky?

WILLIAMS: Well, out on my grandfather’s farm, he was a sharecropper for a couple of years, and than my mother’s sister, my aunt, why her husband was a foreman in a railroad shop, so he got my father a job there. He worked there in… BERGE: What year were you born?

WILLIAMS: 1909.

BERGE: 1909. 2:00Huh-huh. Where did you go to school?

WILLIAMS: Well, I went to a little school out in Marshall County called Little Cypress Grade School. Then we moved to Paducah so I went to grade school in Paducah, and Junior High School and Reidland. About that time my father, you know, he wanted a little piece of land so he bought about thirty or forty acres about twelve miles out of Paducah and we moved back out in the country. And I went to high school by the name of Reidland.

BERGE: Reidland. How do you spell that?

WILLIAMS: R-e-i-d-l-a-n-d.

BERGE: Did you finish high school?

WILLIAMS: No, I quit when I was in the tenth grade. When I… BERGE: What year was that. Do you remember?

WILLIAMS: About 1927.

BERGE: What did you do?

WILLIAMS: Well, I was going to be a professional prize-fighter. I started then.

BERGE: You were that young?

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

BERGE: High school age?

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

BERGE: How did you get into that?

WILLIAMS: Well, 3:00I don’t know, I just—they—I read and seen pictures of guys fighting and I thought I would like to try it.

BERGE: How long did you do that?

WILLIAMS: Seven years.

BERGE: Until when?

WILLIAMS: 1935 was my last fight in the month of March.

BERGE: How did you get into the three C’s?

WILLIAMS: Well, when I was fighting I injured my hand, my left hand, and I should not have had a fight for some time till that healed. But you know, you had to make a living, and I would keep taking fights and I would keep injuring it. And I had a fight in Evansville Indiana and I really hurt it bad that time so the Doctor told me I should stay off, anyway six or eight months. So I happened to be in downtown Paducah and I happened to meet my high school principal when I was going to school, but then he was a County Superintendent. And he asked me about the fight racket and I told him I had injured my hand and couldn’t fight for some time; so he asked, “what are you going to do?” I said, “well, I thought 4:00I could get a job at the railroad shop.” He said, “how would you like to go to California?” I said, “what’s the deal?” He told me about the Civilian Conservation Corps which is the CCC.

BERGE: Did you know much about it at then? Did you know much about it?

WILLIAMS: The Civilian Conservation Corps? No, I just read a little about it where they were going to take boys, you know, from seventeen or eighteen to twenty-five. My father, he said, “why don’t you join that? In the railroad shop you might have to lift something pretty heavy and injure you hand.” So my buddy, he was with me when I met the school superintendent, and I said, “how about him?” Can he—my father was working and he didn’t have much income. My father, he was only working about three days a week then, times were kind of tough and I said, “how about my buddy can he go?” And he said, “yeah” I can fix it up if you come down.” So he did 5:00and we went to Fort Knox. We were there and took all our tests and everything and got our clothing… BERGE: How long did they keep you there? Do you remember?

WILLIAMS: Oh, about four or five days, as well as I remember. And the second morning why they blew a whistle and there was one of the officers out there—they had to get up on a box or something and he introduced himself, he was Lieutenant Willis, Mechanized Cavalry. The next thing he said, “you are in the Army now.” Well, I didn’t like that word. And my buddy said, “you’re in the Army now? I thought we were going to be in a work camp.” I said, “Well, I can take it because I was in the National Guard down in Florida when I was down there for two weeks of training.” And then it went on and he asked anybody if they had any military experience, and I finally held up my hand, I had been in the National Guard, the two weeks; and well, it was over then. And then a little later 6:00on they had a fella, the Major, I hadn’t met him--he had a orderly--he had picked out a little guy--he come down, and said, “Williams, he called for Williams.” I said, “yeah, my name is Williams.” He said I want to see you at the ( ) up there. I went up there and the Major introduced himself as Major Murphy. And he said, “I understand you have had some fighting experience and some military experience?” I said, “yes sir.” He said, “we are going to California and I would like to make you my first Sergeant.” I said, “well, that’s fine but I would just as soon you get somebody else.” He said, “ why?” “Well,” I said, “we got boys from western Kentucky and we got boys from eastern Kentucky and there is about fifteen, I’d say colored boys.” 7:00I said, “you know you got a pay day and there will be a little drinking and there might be a little trouble and I would just as soon not get in there.” He said, “I think I can change your mind.” I said, “yes sir?” He said, “I just got orders”--I think it was eleven key men he could make—“and some of them gets twenty dollars more a month and some”--I think it was eleven--but he said, “you are the first one down for twenty dollars.” Well that changed my mind. I said I would try it. So we went to California on the troop train, we were on the tail end and Major Murphy said—oh, oh before I get to that when he told me—when I agreed to the job—he said, “there is another regular Army guy there, his name is Sergeant Brown. You get up here at two ‘o clock and you and myself and Sergeant Brown has got to go over to headquarters.” Well 8:00we went over there and they give us a forty-five colt automatic and the belt and we had to put it on and we had to sign for it. And I don’t know what it was for—to this day I don’t. We went back to camp where the rest of the guys were and they see me with that forty-five colt and one of the guys said, “do we get a gun when we get to California?” I said, when you get to California you get a rifle. He runs up to this Major he wanted to go home. (laughter) The Major says, “what are you telling these guys?” I ( ) we got no guys to go to California. But we took a long trip. We went all the way down to Memphis, Tennessee, and up to St. Louis, oh, we went to Denver, Colorado and north to 9:00Cheyenne Wyoming and way down to ( ) Las Vegas and then into San Bernardino. I understand later that we ( ) different railroads some money. Got to San Bernardino and had to take a bus to go up to the mountains and I don’t know, some local people had cleared the brush. It was no big trees, the brush was about as high as this ceiling, pretty thick too. I would say about two acres. And then they had two big tents up there, that is where we slept for two or three days before we started to making… BERGE: Well, this is California.

WILLIAMS: …and San Bernardino, but the mailing address was Highland, California, we were about… BERGE: Spell that.

WILLIAMS: Highland- H i g h l a n d.

BERGE: Ok.

WILLIAMS: And we was about six miles up the mountain from that. And well we had—the first job was to make foundations for the tents. 10:00We had to sleep in tents, I’ve got the picture here I will show you after a while.

BERGE: I’ll look at them while you are talking, is that ok?

WILLIAMS: Well, ok.

BERGE: And you guys made the foundations?

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: I’ll see you in what—about fifteen minutes? (This evidently directed to Berge.) BERGE: What’s your name?

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ).

BERGE: Ok. Give us about, oh, twenty minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Thank you sir.

BERGE: Ok. And so… WILLIAMS: That is the foundation for the tent. That was going to be our supply tent.

BERGE: What did you have—wooden foundations?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. Well, as I remember it was.

BERGE: And this is you back there later on, huh?

WILLIAMS: That is about two years ago—in the same spot. That’s about right in here.

BERGE: Yeah. That’s where we had the ( ).

WILLIAMS: See here is where the camp was, but we didn’t have enough water for cooking and everything. So the… BERGE: Boy, that was really rotten country wasn’t it? 11:00WILLIAMS: Yeah, boy, we was way down the canyon had to go about forty miles to get our ( ).

BERGE: What kind of work did you all do there?

WILLIAMS: We built fire breaks on the mountain. Twenty-five feet wide and that is ( ) they finally got made. That there is… BERGE: Are you in this picture here?

WILLIAMS: No. I’m not in there. I’m in here but I am way back in the back.

BERGE: When you all were there—here you are right here.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. Huh-hum. In this we had a fire on that mountain there. I been all over that mountain there.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

WILLIAMS: Well, anyway we got… BERGE: How long did you stay out there?

WILLIAMS: About four months and I was First Sergeant there and I didn’t have anything to do. I would give mail call and that was about the biggest job I had. I had a couple of fights. I had to straighten them out and—but I… BERGE: They took care of you because you were a boxer, is that right?

WILLIAMS: Sir?

BERGE: They probably took care of you pretty good because you were a boxer.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, I had more privileges than some of the guys.

BERGE: How much do you weigh? You were big.

WILLIAMS: I was a light heavy weight. I weighed around one hundred and 12:00seventy-three or four pounds, yeah.

BERGE: Tell me this Roy, when you were there, were most of the people in that camp from Kentucky?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. All of us were, but these colored boys, I believe they… BERGE: Did they—did they live in the same place you did?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. But they had their own tent.

BERGE: They had their own tent.

WILLIAMS: I think it was only about two squad. That would be sixteen.

BERGE: What did they do? Did they do the same kind of work you did?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. But they didn’t work with me, I don’t… BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. But they did the same kind of work.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, but there was one crew that was on the road—that was building the road there. I don’t know whether they were colored or white, or don’t—it’s been so long that I don’t… BERGE: Yeah. I understand. Ok. They had—they had colored when you were back at Mammoth Cave too, didn’t they?

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

BERGE: Ok. Was it the same bunch?

WILLIAMS: No. No. They were different. 13:00BERGE: Now tell me this. You stayed your four months and did those—did those… WILLIAMS: Fire breaks.

BERGE: Fire breaks. Then what did you do come back to Kentucky after that?

WILLIAMS: Well, I got a little more I would like to tell you before we get to that.

BERGE: Sure.

WILLIAMS: Like I said I was First Sergeant and I didn’t have much to do , I had mail call and keep people straightened out. So ( ) I read about Jack Dempsey (prize fighter) getting his exercise, climbing the mountains.

BERGE: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: So I decided that was what I wanted to do, because I figured on going back into the fight racket when that term was over. So I finally hit the Major up what I wanted to do. “Well,” he said, “you know I am glad that you want that job, cause this Ranger, the head Ranger, he said you are making too much money he wants you out in the field.” (laughter) And I thought I would lose that twenty dollars, I thought I would have to go back to forty-five dollars. So a couple of days later he came back and said, “ you are all fixed up, you go out Monday and by the way you get to keep your rating. So 14:00I … BERGE: So that really worked out good.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, that worked out good for me. So it was October, we got there the first of June and Major called me in and said, “Williams,” he said, “we are going to disband camp and we are going to Death Valley.” I thought I would like to go to Death Valley but I didn’t think I wanted to stay there all winter. But he said, “I’m not going. I am going back to Fort Knox and pick up another company and I can take eleven key men back with me. And I would like to take you back to be my first Sergeant again.” So that’s what I chose to do. That’s when I went to Mammoth Cave.

BERGE: Yeah. How long did you stay there?

WILLIAMS: Thirty months.

BERGE: Thirty months WILLIAMS: I was in all told thirty-four months.

BERGE: About three years you were in the three C’s.

WILLIAMS; Yeah.

BERGE: What did you do when you left the three C’s?

WILLIAMS: Well, I got married in the CCC.

BERGE: Where was your wife from?

WILLIAMS: She was from Bowling Green, Kentucky.

BERGE: I guess you met her there when you were in Mammoth Cave, huh?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. You know a lot of these big bands would come through the country you know. These little towns of Glasgow and Bowling Green that was a college town, and one of my best buddies, I met there at 15:00Mammoth Cave, his mother was a teacher at the college. I met a lot of girls they would come dance at these dances and that is where I met my wife, at one of the dances. And I was in the CCC’s nine months. Her mother and father were separated; she lived with her mother and her father was in Miami, Florida, he was a contractor and building contractor. The business was so bad down there that he was coming to Bowling Green, and you know, work there and I could get a job with him. Well he came up there--he didn’t get many jobs. I remember sometimes I wished I was back in the three C’s.

BERGE: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: That went on for about eight months I guess. I finally went to Paducah and my Uncle was in the railroad shop, the pipe shop, and he got me a job there in the store room. And I worked a 16:00few months and they had a big lay-off. Oh, well I didn’t get back to work and I had another Uncle in Louisiana, so I went down there and worked in a paper mill. I worked with a welder, I was a welder helper. And that plant closed down and I went back to Paducah, sometime I would be in Bowling Green. I worked in a tobacco barn. They raised a lot of tobacco.

BERGE: Just did everything you could.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

BERGE: Times were still real bad weren’t they.

WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah, I say they were. You would see a guy walking down the street with a lunch box, that was quite a treat. So I finally in the paper mill, my foreman told me, “Williams”, he says, “Ah, I can send you to Cleveland Ohio and take a welding test, so that ( ) equipment. So I went there for two weeks, a two weeks course, and went back and he put me into welding. Well the mill closed down in 1940, February. So 17:00I had--when I was working with the railroad--I had a little experience firing these locomotive cranes with coal; but I had a cousin in California who was a crane operator so I wrote and asked him if he thought I could get a job, I told him what I did. He sent me a telegram and a—that he had a job for me. At that time my wife--we had a baby then--she was back in Bowling Green Kentucky, because her grandfather had passed away. Well, I bundled up everything and got me a bus ticket to California. I wrote her a letter and said when you get this letter I will be in California. Well, she broke down and cried, she said, that I had gone out there. But I couldn’t get a job out there, I looked and looked and looked and put in an application for a lot of places. But I did put my application into Douglas Aircraft. And I was just about to go back to Louisiana--the people there had started up again--and I got a telegram 18:00to come over for an interview. I had an interview and got the job. I worked there for thirty-two years.

BERGE: Where was that?

WILLIAMS: Santa Monica California, at Douglas Aircraft now it is McDonald-Douglas Aircraft.

BERGE: Well, did you like it out there.

WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah, yeah. I got out there in a couple of months.

BERGE: Well, that was kind of interesting, you worked all those years then. Where exactly is that?

WILLIAMS: Well, that is in Los Angeles, Santa Monica is just right on over the suburbs. I live in ( ) that is twelve… BERGE: How far is Venice from there?

WILLIAMS: Venice? About ninety miles. When I retired we moved up into the mountains. I had a nice place up there by a creek. From the front porch we had a creek in there and freedom. But it was too high for my wife. My wife had a heart condition and we moved to ( ).

BERGE: Yeah. Too high in the mountains for her. Huh-huh.

WILLIAMS So we have been there thirteen years. 19:00BERGE: Is your wife here with you?

WILLIAMS: No, she is handicapped. She is on oxygen around the clock and got arthritis so bad she can’t hardly stand up.

BERGE: I want to ask you some questions about the work you all did in Mammoth Cave. When you all came back to Mammoth Cave, about how many CCC fellas were there, do you remember?

WILLIAMS: In my camp we had two hundred, I believe two hundred and fifteen.

BERGE: How many camps were there?

WILLIAMS: There were four.

BERGE: Four.

WILLIAMS: I will tell you there were only three when we first got there, but they added another four.

BERGE: You said there were some blacks at Mammoth Cave?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. But they didn’t stay very long, maybe four months and we didn’t have any trouble with them.

BERGE: And you didn’t have any problems.

WILLIAMS: No.

BERGE: Tell me this, when you were at the Cave what kind of work did you do there?

WILLIAMS: Well, they had a rock quarry and a bunch working in the rock quarry. They crushed the rock there and they made roads and they put the rock on the roads. The majority of them worked in the forest. 20:00Cleaned the dead trees up and… BERGE: Making trails?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. Making trails. Some of them worked in the cave.

BERGE: What did they do in the cave?

WILLIAMS: Well, they would take rocks and line them up and fill the dirt in and make the trail a little lighter. They had a trail over there but it wasn’t light enough BERGE: Wasn’t light enough, huh?

WILLIAMS: And it rained quite a bit. Well, we stayed in camp but on Saturday they had to go in the cave and work half a day.

BERGE: Let me ask you this, in the CCC’s, what did you think of the food?

WILLIAMS: Well, I thought it was excellent. Some of them picked on it.

BERGE: Some people will pick on anything though.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. And some of them boys they come in there little and skinny, but when they were there a few months they really picked up. Some of those heavy guys, they lost. 21:00BERGE: It was ( ).

WILLIAMS: Oh, absolutely.

BERGE: When you were in the CCC’s, what did the—what kind of recreation did they have in the camp where you were?

WILLIAMS: Well, they had a baseball team, we had a boxing team, and we had a big rec hall had a big fire place in the end of it. It had a big pool table in there and ping-pong and the canteen was in there too. You know they give you canteen checks, most of the boys only got five dollars. You could buy five dollars worth of check and buy stuff out of the canteen.

BERGE: Was that canteen cheaper than the stores in the… WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Just like the Army today, you know.

BERGE: Just like the PX?

WILLIAMS: Yeah, Huh-huh.

BERGE: Tell me this, you said you box some. Did you box when you were in the… WILLIAMS: Yeah. I had about eight or nine fights, when I was in there.

BERGE: In the CCC?

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

BERGE: Did you fight other CCC people?

WILLIAMS: No, no I fought professional guys.

BERGE: Oh, in other words you were carrying on with the— WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yeah.

BERGE: So you didn’t fight on the boxing team in the CCC, then?

WILLIAMS: No. No. 22:00We only had about three matches while I was there. I was just the referee then. I fought in Jackson, Tennessee; Jacksonville, Florida; Paducah Kentucky; Louisville… BERGE: Oh, they let you out to go fight?

WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah. I got ( ). In fact, one of my Lieutenants, he had an airplane and wanted to fly me to Jackson, Tennessee and I didn’t want to fly. I ( ) the Lieutenant from Camp Number Three was in there and he was going with us. And afterward he said, “I am glad you…” UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: (Sound of door opening) Mr. Berge got here yet?

BERGE: I’m here.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: You want me to wait till you get through with him?

BERGE: You can sit here, it will be all right.

WILLIAMS: And after we broke up he said, “ I am glad you didn’t want to fly, I didn’t want to go either.” (laugher) 23:00I got a license, went to Louisville and got a license to have professional fights in the little town of Glasgow. We had one fight lined up and one of the boys got sick and they sent him to the dispensary up at Fort Knox… BERGE: Huh-huh.

WILLIAMS: He had spinal meningitis they quarantined us that same day.

BERGE: So you didn’t have those fights. Tell me this was the medical care pretty good?

WILLIAMS: The what?

BERGE: Did you have pretty good medical care?

WILLIAMS: Yeah, I think so.

BERGE: What do you think of the experience all together? How important do you think it was in your life? The three C’s?

WILLIAMS: Well, I don’t know, the best thing that happened to me, I met my wife there. It was good training for the boys that had to go in the service in the war. It was a good start to get them going. And a lot of guys couldn’t read and write in there. That was a good thing.

BERGE: You had a—of course you had been to high school before you went in.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

BERGE: Were you a little older than most of them? 24:00WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yeah. I just barely got in, I was twenty-four.

BERGE: You just barely got in really.

WILLIAMS: Well, that’s about my life, I guess.

BERGE: Did you ever think about leaving California after you retired? Or do you like it?

WILLIAMS: No. No.

BERGE: That’s your home as far as you are concerned.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. We only had one daughter and she got married and had four grand children, so I don’t have any friends back in Kentucky any more. Just got three or four cousins.

BERGE: But your family is out there. Your daughter and everything.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yeah. My brother he is out there too. I have a sister, she lives in Detroit.

BERGE: How did your brother end up out there?

WILLIAMS: Well, he was in the service and when the war was over he stopped to see us and just stayed there.

BERGE: He just stayed, huh? (laughs). Well Mr. Williams I want to thank you for coming in here it was a big help for us and the—did 25:00you—oh, I know of another question I wanted to ask you. I ask you about it yesterday. Somebody told me that there were a lot of buildings in the park area… WILLIAMS: Yeah.

BERGE: And we heard that the CCC tore those buildings down, do you remember that?

WILLIAMS: Well, they didn’t tear them down when I was there, but the boy—I got his picture in here—no I got his picture—no he is in here, he stayed in this six years and eight months. And he helped tear some of them down. They blew them up—he showed me some of the pictures where they blew them down.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

WILLIAMS: But when I was there ( ) they bought a lot of farms there and included in the park, and some of them didn’t want to sell. They didn’t want to move. They had to force them out.

BERGE: I bet people were really upset about that WILLIAMS: Yeah. I don’t know how many—how 26:00big the area is now, I guess that ( ) it is a real big area.

BERGE: Oh, yeah, it really was. Well I sure thank you and it has been a big help for us. (it sounds as though the tape was turned off and then the following was taped at another time.) Mr. Williams you said that you had some more of the… WILLIAMS: Yeah. This is my third time at this meeting, and last year I met one fella that it was fifty-three years since I saw him. And the year before I met four or five guys that… BERGE: Where were they from, Kentucky here?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. Around Mammoth Cave, that area in there.

BERGE: Were they in the same unit you were?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yeah.

BERGE: Are any of them here this time?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. One of them is . He, the guy you saw last night, I told him to see you. He’s got a book, you know, he had a book he’s got an appointment with you at eleven ‘ o clock.

BERGE: Oh, yeah. Sure.

WILLIAMS: Now he got a chapter about the CCC.

BERGE: He does? Well, that’s good. Is he in your company?

WILLIAMS: Yeah, he was in my company.

BERGE: Just 27:00have a seat (someone just entered the room).

WILLIAMS: Well I guess that… BERGE: I need to get you to sign… END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE WILLIAMS.

END OF INTERVIEW.