Oral History Interview with Herbert S. Danner

WILLIAM BERGE: The following is an unrehearsed interview with Mr. Herbert S. Danner of Cincinnati Ohio. The interview is conducted by William Berge for the State Oral History Commission of Kentucky, on October 5, 1990, at Cumberland Falls State Park. The interview is conducted at Four PM at the main building at the Dupont Lodge. Mr. Danner I want to ask you to—by starting out with a little bit about yourself. Tell me, where you were born, and what date you were born, and that sort of stuff?

HERBERT S. DANNER: I was born in Cincinnati Ohio, February 19, 1909. I am now eighty-one years old.

BERGE: What was your father’s name?

DANNER: Thomas P. Danner.

BERGE: And your mother?

DANNER: Mary Catherine.

BERGE: What’s her maiden name?

DANNER: Rehmund. R E H M U N D.

BERGE: Where were they from? 1:00DANNER: Actually my grandmother is from Holland, as her ancestor, her mother and father, the Rehmunds were from Holland. And my father was an Englishman, his mother was born in England.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DANNER: She came to the United States and he was born in the United States.

BERGE: And did they meet in Cincinnati or did they meet somewhere else?

DANNER: Dayton, Ohio.

BERGE: Oh, Dayton.

DANNER: Dayton was originally my father’s… BERGE: Where did you go to school?

DANNER: I went to Cincinnati Ohio five years, New York, one year, the rest of the time was in Dayton, Ohio three years and Cincinnati till I graduated the University.

BERGE: What school did you go to in Dayton?

DANNER: ( ) Montgomery grade school, Parker was my first year in High School and Steel, I went a year there too.

BERGE: And you went to the University of Cincinnati?

DANNER: Five years.

BERGE: Huh-huh. What—when did you graduate there?

DANNER: 1933.

BERGE: You are the second or third person I have met who had experiences with the CCC, who like you, were a college 2:00graduate. Were you an engineer?

DANNER: No, I took commercial ( ), actually shifted, was in Engineering College and went to and got an Engineering degree, took two years of engineering switched to commercial.

BERGE: Ok.

DANNER: But actually an engineering degree. It is an unusual degree.

BERGE: In thirty-three—what did you do when you got out of college?

DANNER: Well, the Depression was very bad. I went to Cambridge Ohio and worked in a furniture factory as a kind of cost accountant for six months. Then I came back to Cincinnati and I worked then for the WPA as a safety director, for WPA in Cincinnati. And then I went in the Army after that.

BERGE: It’s a little like Mr. Blunk’s career, you know. When you were in the Army, did you go in with a commission or… DANNER: Second Lieutenant.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DANNER: See I got a degree from UC.

BERGE: Hum-huh. So you went in as a… DANNER: It was a good deal I then I could always work in a dirty place and… BERGE: Oh, yeah. Do you remember what a Second Lieutenant made then?

DANNER: One hundred forty-three dollars a month. 3:00BERGE: Lot of money wasn’t it?

DANNER: You had to buy your own uniforms. (laughter) We did board at the camps for fifty cents a day.

BERGE: That’s not bad, fifteen dollars a month.

DANNER: Yeah.

BERGE: Yeah.

DANNER: Yeah. That’s what we paid to board for ( ).

BERGE: Well, when you went in, were you married then?

DANNER: No, wasn’t married the first year.

BERGE: Ok. Where did you go when you first went in the service?

DANNER: Harlan County Kentucky. Oh, CCC you mean?

BERGE: No, in the service when you were ( ).

DANNER: World War II? To Camp Stewart, Georgia, Coast Artillery.

BERGE: No, I am talking about in—after you worked in that factory… DANNER: Yeah, well, I went to Fort Thomas and was sent to, well ( ) Kentucky. I was at Williamsburg Camp, 509 was the number of it.

BERGE: So your headquarters was Fort Thomas?

DANNER: Fort Thomas at that time. ( ) later changed 4:00to Louisville, Fort Knox.

BERGE: So the first place you went to was Williamsburg.

DANNER: 509.

BERGE: Uh-huh. How long were you there?

DANNER: Just about a month.

BERGE: What did you do?

DANNER: I was just a junior officer learning the game just fresh out of Fort Thomas and just helped out… BERGE: Nobody really knew what they were going to do in the CCC did they? They were just sort of… DANNER: No, it was one of the first camps that ( )… BERGE: They were just sort of feeling their way through, weren’t they?

DANNER: Yeah, well I just went to learn a little bit and then when they formed the company… BERGE: So you really knew when you went in the Army that you were going to be ( )the CCC.

DANNER: Yeah, I knew it was the CCC, see that was the deal.

BERGE: Yeah. So you actually in the US Army?

DANNER: With Army pay all the way and got full credit for pension ( ).

BERGE: Yeah, that is what I mean.

DANNER: Never changed that, full Army.

BERGE: So when you went down there you stayed there a month and they sent you over to Pathfork.

DANNER: That is when we ( ) and we formed that camp and built it. We built that camp.

BERGE: At Pathfork.

DANNER: That was the first of the production camps the CCC 5:00had. They were made somewhere in town and shipped from town.

BERGE: Oh, so they were like almost pre-fab.

DANNER: They were pre-fab. They were pre-fab.

BERGE: You don’t know where they were made though do you?

DANNER: I really don’t know where they came from. I want to think they came from somewhere down at Palatka, they came from the south somewhere.

BERGE: Palatka Florida?

DANNER: Somewhere they came from Florida, by freight ( ).

BERGE: Let me ask you some stuff. Now you are going to have different perspective than most of the other people that we have interviewed. What was your impression of these kids—and they were kids—you know, when they were coming into camp. What did you think about them?

DANNER: Well we had two—we had a variety—we had from the hills of Kentucky and we had them from Covington Kentucky and Newport.

BERGE: And Louisville?

DANNER: None from Louisville. They come from Newport and Covington and from the hills of Kentucky. They were completely different. Some were thieves actually we had to break them—and they couldn’t steal—went through the barracks one day and a guy had a tire hanging up that he swiped 6:00and you can’t have it. You just very funny and we finally got to be pretty good boys.

BERGE: Huh-huh. Huh-huh. How did they get along?

DANNER: We had very little trouble.

BERGE: How do you account for that? That is what everybody says, that there was very little trouble.

DANNER: Well, they had a pretty rough time where they were and this was a big improvement. They had three square meals a day. We put seventeen pounds in six months average on every boy in the CCC.

BERGE: Is that right.

DANNER: That might be interesting to you.

BERGE: Seventeen pounds.

DANNER: Seventeen pounds average for every boy in the CCC.

BERGE: That is interesting isn’t it. ( ).

DANNER: In our outfit they didn’t work too hard, no.

BERGE: No, but harder than where they had been living.

DANNER: ( ) I never had complaints about the field never, not in any camp I had been in; they never complained about the field.

BERGE: That is what I have always heard. Yeah.

DANNER: They liked their work, evidently.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

DANNER: I don’t think they pushed them too hard.

BERGE: But they didn’t shirk their work and that is one reason that there was not too much trouble; they were tired and they got home and go to sleep and that kind of stuff, you know.

DANNER: Well, 7:00they went to town a lot too and had a heck of a lot of fun. (laughter) It wasn’t too hard a deal, even the work ( ). Remember these foremen they were relief people too actually too. Actually we were all relief people, I mean everybody was. Everybody knew their job.

BERGE: What did you all—what did you military officers do with them? What did you teach them?

DANNER: We had—well, we had an educational advisor who was under us. We ran the whole damn camp, except the superintendent during work hours was their boss. Other than that, any time off duty they belonged to the Army. And we had an educational advisor, and we had a doctor and a ( ) traveling chaplain.

BERGE: Huh-huh. And the educational advisor did he offer classes for them and everything?

DANNER: Oh, sure he would—that was under the company commander and he would check them and they had meetings themselves and we coordinated it. We bought ten typewriters and paid for them, so they could have a--and I hired a couple teacher and paid for them that came in and helped. See he handled them, and he hired them 8:00,but I got them for him. We were his boss. He worked for the Army.

BERGE: Huh-huh. The uh—you all were in charge of the recreation too, I guess, weren’t you?

DANNER: Yeah, everything—the company commander ran everything that wasn’t during the work period.

BERGE: Were you a company commander for Pathfork?

DANNER: Yeah, I was—no I was junior officer of Pathfork. I was a First Lieutenant, see the day I got my First Lieutenancy they gave me Gooserocks.

BERGE: Oh, Ok.

DANNER: I was in Manchester Kentucky.

BERGE: Oh, Ok. Let’s just--we can talk about them together if you want to; but what kind of things did you do for recreation? Well, we had baseball, basketball, one camp won a State Championship in basketball, for the CCC, they played each other. I had my colored camp won a State Championship, they played white companies. We had baseball.

BERGE: Where was the colored camp?

DANNER: Russellville Kentucky.

BERGE: Huh-huh. Were you the commanding officer there?

DANNER: Commanding officer there. That was when I left. That was my last camp.

BERGE: Did you have any trouble getting them to play white teams or anything? Was it… DANNER: Well, we had trouble one time, 9:00mainly with the people of Russellville they… BERGE: Yeah, It wasn’t with the CCC.

DANNER: No, the white team, we had a little trouble, and they called the game off and then rescheduled and played the damn thing. I went to town and went to the Chamber of Commerce and gave them hell and worked out a little thing with them and we had the game after all.

BERGE: Were you—did you have any black officers working for you?

DANNER: Had a doctor he was a colored man, educational advisor was colored, except for the Captain the junior officers were white.

BERGE: How about the captain?

DANNER: All colored. Everybody was colored.

BERGE: Except for the three officers.

DANNER: Two officers. Well, the doctor was colored, he was an Army officer.

BERGE: Huh-huh. How long were you there?

DANNER: I think, fourteen months. That’s why I left, I was going to go civilian and ( ) too damn hard to do 10:00( ).

BERGE: What—did I ask you if you were ever stationed at Mammoth Cave?

DANNER: No, that was my nearest camp though Mammoth Cave—colored—see it was a colored camp at Mammoth Cave.

BERGE: You know, someone was telling this man that I know, that at Mammoth Cave that one of the things they did there, that is different from most places is that they literally had to tear down buildings, do you remember that?

DANNER: Never heard of that.

BERGE: Ok.

DANNER: They worked in the cave. The coloreds actually worked in the cave, built lights and… BERGE: Walkways and stuff?

DANNER: Cave was too damn hot for ( ) lot of work down there.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DANNER: They actually worked in the cave.

BERGE: Now let’s just stop a minute and start Pathfork, and tell me where you went in Pathfork and just go right down through there and tell me all the different camps you were in.

DANNER: I am eighty-one years old and let me get my list here. I went from 11:00Pathfork, started on that one, 509… BERGE: And then you went to Manchester after Pathfork didn’t you?

DANNER: No, I went from—I went to Pathfork and from Pathfork I went to Gooserock… BERGE: Yeah, that is right up by Manchester.

DANNER: Yeah, six miles out of Manchester camp was, on a little dirt road. Roughest camp in the state.

BERGE: How long were you there?

DANNER: Over a year.

BERGE: Why do you say it was the roughest camp in the state?

DANNER: It was the roughest camp in the state! The roughest people the… BERGE: ( ) Manchester.

DANNER: It was really tough in those days. There was no Sheriff, and they were advertising for a Sheriff.

BERGE: You know once I had a Court Case in Manchester and they knew that the local judge couldn’t handle it and they brought a judge in. And in those days the hotel was right across the street from the Court House. And he went out on the front porch of the hotel and ( ) walk they didn’t want him. 12:00He got out there and got to walking–the new judge did—and somebody from the Court House shot and killed him. (laughs) DANNER: They didn’t have a Sheriff then. No Court House. The Court House had burned down. When I was there, there was no Court House and no Sheriff. They was advertising for one. I had a tire stolen from a truck right in the heart of town, do whatever I had to do to recover it see. I said none and the notified the Sheriff, I’ll never forget that. (laughter) BERGE: Ok, after Manchester, where did you go to?

DANNER: I kinda forget Manchester, Gooserock, Bald Rock for a short time… BERGE: Bald Rock over there in ( ) County.

DANNER: I was only there about… BERGE: ( ) railroad DANNER: Yeah. 13:00I was there a very short time, I don’t know what the hell I did there.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: ( ) Bald Rock DANNER: …Gooserock, Williamsburg, Bald Rock, then I came to—I told you about London, thirty-five, forty… BERGE: No, where was London?

DANNER: Well, I was ( )… BERGE: Ok. Down by the ( )…(they are both talking at once) DANNER: ( ) it was a government project they moved them out of the ( ) Camp and ( ) all the wood and timber to make ready for the lake. I was part of that program.

BERGE: Ok.

DANNER: I’m getting kind of forgetful.

BERGE: No, that is good though. I didn’t know there was one at ( ) DANNER: ( ) government housing the project, people moved in and they didn’t like it a damn bit. The didn’t like it when I was there. They ( ) ( ) they didn’t like it that was ( ). Then I went from there to Cumberland Falls I guess.

BERGE: Back in to Cumberland Falls.

DANNER: Yeah to Cumberland Falls 14:00( ) BERGE: Well, lookit if you had to , well, let me ask you more about you career and then we will get back to the CCC. After you finished with the CCC when was that?

DANNER: Well about thirty… BERGE: When did you leave Russellville?

DANNER: I think it was thirty-nine, about thirty-nine.

BERGE: Then what did you do after you left the CCC?

DANNER: I went back to Cincinnati and got into the real estate business. My father had been a real estate man and things were picking up a little and so I went into the real estate business.

BERGE: And then what did you do? Stay in the real estate business? Did you do that the rest of your life?

DANNER: No, I got drafted into the Army then. (laughter) BERGE: What did you do in the Army?

DANNER: Well I started out as a First Lieutenant, cause that was my rank. Then I got promoted to Captain, and then I ended up a Major. I am a retired Lt. Colonel, they 15:00( ).

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. When the war was over you were a Major.

DANNER: A Major.

BERGE: Where were you during the war?

DANNER: Oh, God, I started ( ) in Georgia before Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor struck we left the next day for, ( ) Baltimore Maryland, outside of Baltimore, the Martin Plant.

BERGE: Yeah, I know where it is.

DANNER: We put the guns around the Martin Plant and then, when we got the guns in they said they were going to shut it. And we left the guns and drew new ones and they were short of every damn thing. And we were ordered to the Brooklyn Navy Yard there—we were the first to seize land in World War II in Caledonia.

BERGE: Ah.

DANNER: That was the first land seized. Now when Roosevelt said he would take half the Army ( ) 180 ( ) in the whole damn Army, 16:00half in the Pacific and half in ( ). We were actually divided. But I might add this only one-fifth of the war effort in the Pacific until VE Day.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

DANNER: We never had over one-fifth of the effort.

BERGE: Did you—what—you got a retirement didn’t you from the Army?

DANNER: Yeah. I draw a pension of about twelve hundred month.

BERGE: Ok. Let’s go back then and let’s go back into the thirties when you were in the CCC. If somebody was to ask you—you know I am—I’m going to ask you what give me your assessment of the CCC program.

DANNER: Oh, it was really important because three million boys went through the CCC program in the years it existed.

BERGE: Three million.

DANNER: Three million. It was a little more, by the time you got personnel it was around three and one-half million. There was a lot of others, officers and the foresters and the different groups, but there was actually three million boys went into the CCC.

BERGE: Then 17:00there was that many families got money… DANNER: They got twenty-five dollars a month to the support of their families, and most of those families really needed that money. A few of them got a little kick-back on their pay but most of the money stayed at home.

BERGE: Hum-hum.

DANNER: We tried to watch it if we could. Tried to ( ) if they sent it home.

BERGE: Yeah. It made it harder for the other kids.

DANNER: Then it gave them self-respect, it gave them something to do. They had money, they drew five dollars a month. We sold Bull Durham tobacco for four cents, candy bars for four cents. All that stuff was sold almost at cost, they had that five dollars they could spend, they got maybe a couple bucks from home.

BERGE: That fella that was in here, Mr. Speagel when you came in, he ah—when he was stationed up here he was the guy in charge of the commissary what do you call it?

DANNER: ( ) you mean?

BERGE: No where they sold candy bars and… DANNER: Oh, PX.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. The PX.

DANNER: They changed what they called it, Army terminology, it was Camp Exchange then.

BERGE: Yeah. Camp Exchange. That’s what it was. What did you all do with the money that was made there?

DANNER: We used it to buy ten typewriters 18:00with one fund. We bought a pool table at the ( ) camp. I had charge of that stuff, I was the junior officer there.

BERGE: It was company funds.

DANNER: Yes, it was company funds. We kept track and we could buy, out of the ration fund, which was another fund, we could buy fruits and vegetables and nice things for the table. A certain per cent, ten per cent, we could use for stuff at the post and ( ).

BERGE: Where did you get supplies did you buy them yourself or did you… DANNER: No, they came from Fort Thomas, Kentucky, Army supplies, on the Army ration. We got the same ration the soldiers did. It ran from about forty-two cents a day, to in my time about fifty cents. That was actual cost of… BERGE: Huh-huh. And those guys ate better than they ever did in their lives I bet.

DANNER: Seventeen pounds, so help me God, was the average weight gained and they loved that food.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DANNER: And here was enough of it. Coffee was ten cents a pound, bread was four cents a loaf 19:00and all cheap prices. Tea, a seventy pound carton of tea, we got for ten cents a pound. Now tea is an expensive item. We got things like that real cheap. Actually the Army handled their own coffee roasting at that time and the tea they imported direct on their own ships. Those two things were really cheap.

BERGE: In your job—you know as company commander and post whatever you call it—what was the most difficult part of that work? When you look back at it, you know if you thought about the work being hard, what was the most hard?

DANNER: Well, coordinating the different departments was really hard. See, some people weren’t really fit for the job; we had to get rid of some people. And if you had to leave them on you had a hard time doing it because—actually, I was shooting trouble that is why I was at these different camps. That’s why I was at the colored camp. That was the most enjoyable one I had because there was only one other one at Mammoth Cave and we could compare notes and it was easier.

BERGE: Huh-huh. So you were kind 20:00of a trouble shooter… DANNER: Well really I had to do that at nine camps.

BERGE: Huh-huh. But—ah—again what was the most difficult part? Just getting rid of people who couldn’t do their… DANNER: Well, we didn’t send many home. We really kept them; but sometimes those boys would run off and go home and their parents would bring them back.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DANNER: And they would adjust and everything would work out pretty good.

BERGE: Sort of like Boys Town.

DANNER: Yeah. We were a big improvement on ( ). It wasn’t hard work in spite of whatever they said, it was easy going. These men, they were happy they had the job and they treated these boys good. We had a little difficulty every now and then, somebody would have a little trouble, but very seldom. We were the only one’s who could fine them see. We could fine them three dollars.

BERGE: Fine who?

DANNER: Anybody who did something wrong.

BERGE: Even the foreman?

DANNER: Oh, no, no, no. Nothing to do with ( ).

BERGE: You’re talking about the kids.

DANNER; Yes, three dollars a month, was the most you could fine anybody.

BERGE: That was a pretty big fine, sixty per cent. (laughs) DANNER: Yeah. One dollar was ( ) off 21:00the payroll.

BERGE: What did you do with that dollar then?

DANNER: I stuck it in the ( ). Diarrhea was a little problem and syphilis, the colored had… BERGE: Where were they catching it?

DANNER: Well these were colored I had forty of them with syphilis.

BERGE: Where were they catching it?

DANNER: I don’t know, in town or anywhere, maybe they had it when they come in, I don’t know. Doc just gave them a quick physical, maybe it showed up later. But we would give them the ( ) shots. They had to take those shots or you could discharge them if they wouldn’t take those shots.

BERGE: Huh-huh. Did many people… DANNER: Had an interesting thing out there. Gonorrhea we sent to Fort Thomas, there wasn’t a good cure for gonorrhea in those days. That was before sulfanilamide and they would go up there—they had to go to Fort Thomas. They didn’t get paid while they were there. Now you either had to discharge them or send them back to… 22:00BERGE: Were there—were there many visitors set up around these camps, to make money off these kids or… DANNER: No, they didn’t have enough… BERGE: Didn’t have enough money did they?

DANNER: No, the ( ) the PX stuff… BERGE: How did they get along with the people in town generally?

DANNER: Well, the colored had the worst trouble in Russellville, but we finally worked that out. I got the Adjutant to come down, we met the ( ), we met the city fathers and told them we were pulling the camp out if they didn’t cooperate. And they ( ) the judge, I got the judge, I worked with the judge, I played golf with the judge. Didn’t even know how to play golf. I played golf with the judge. I got the boys out of jail—we had five in jail—and it worked out good. We ended up good. I even gave the church there fifty dollars for their new fund. I paid that personally because we were getting along with the priest and the preacher. Didn’t have much religion there.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. What kind of work were you all doing in Russellville?

DANNER: Soil conservation. Out on the farms. Putting—you know what soil conservation is… BERGE: They—they—they 23:00wash… DANNER: Well, drainage ditch—I don’t know what the hell they did—contours and… BERGE: How did they decide--did you have—how did they decide which farms to go on and do the work—what people decide that?

DANNER: ( ) the administration… BERGE: Well, I understand… DANNER: I had nothing to do with that whatsoever, except to treat them good out there, buy them ( )… BERGE: Oh, you did?

DANNER: Oh, yeah, we did right, things like that. I will just tell about this. I dug the tree for the boy scouts to get in good with the judge. He ( ) the boys went and did it in their spare time and he gave them a party. The judge did that. I had a good relation with the judge after we battled it out.

BERGE: Who is the judge? Do you remember his name?

DANNER: I think his name was Lindsey, but I don’t know.

BERGE: Was Doc Beacham down there then?

DANNER: I don’t remember Beacham BERGE: Well, he was a big judge, a big politician in the state… DANNER: Well we had a governor, was from Russellville. Lived up on the hill there. A big mansion on the hill.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. I can’t remember his name but I… DANNER: Happy 24:00Chandler visited me at ( ). Roosevelt visited camp at Russellville.

BERGE: Oh, he did?

DANNER: Stopped his train.

BERGE: Huh.

DANNER: I was the Guard of Honor, but ( ) National Guard and I was the Guard of Honor for Roosevelt.

BERGE: I was telling Steve that this summer when I was in Georgia I interviewed a fellow who was in the CCC, who was out at Warm Springs and he remembered seeing Roosevelt.

DANNER: Camp Number One.

BERGE: Yeah. Roosevelt was really fond of that camp. Course he was really fond of the three C’s.

DANNER: He was really fond of them, really he was, that Hopkins was a big shot.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah. So you actually saw… DANNER: Harry Hopkins and what was… BERGE: Ickes, Harold Ickes was it?

DANNER: Ick—no I can’t remember his name. He stayed with us two days at colored camp. Someone wrote in about burning bees, and this, that and the other and he came and he liked it—he got drunk and he stayed with me three days actually. Two nights and three days. I had him there as a big shot at CCC—Robert Victor, 25:00Robert Victor. Stayed with me three days two nights—drank--he loved to drink BERGE: So Roosevelt actually stopped there, huh?

DANNER: Roosevelt stopped his train at the--and the guy who made him President, who nominated him for President of the United States—what was his name I can’t think of it—the Governor of Kentucky—Cecil, was it Rhodes? No.

BERGE: No.

DANNER: I can’t think of it.

BERGE: I can’t either.

DANNER: I can’t either, but he was a big shot from Russellville. Home up on the hill. What the hell is it? He—oh I boarded in Russellville, my wife was there. He lived just two doors from us and I can’t think of his name, she knows.

KICKERT: Was it Fields or Sampson?

DANNER: No, Sampson was from Barbourville.

BERGE: ( ) Sampson you are think… DANNER: Yeah, I can get you that name if you want it. My wife should know… BERGE: I should know—I just can’t think of it right now.

DANNER: Yeah, he was reelected, he was a pretty good governor.

BERGE: As we have been talking about 26:00your experiences--how important the experience was for these boys—how important was the experience for you?

DANNER: Well, I will never forget it. It was probably the most important thing I did in my life. Where I gave, I received, I really did. I was ( ) I was interested in it and I would have stayed except I knew it wouldn’t work… BERGE: It was over—it was over.

DANNER; I didn’t want to do that because it was hard enough as it was. And I don’t know how they worked out later, but I left when they had to change the uniform and I knew it wouldn’t be for me.

BERGE: In other words they took the Army out in thirty-nine?

DANNER: Yeah.

BERGE: Yeah. Then it was more… DANNER: ( ) next year I was in the Army see. And they… BERGE: Yeah the, we don’t know how—yeah. Well, it was an interesting time wasn’t it, that Civilian Conservation Corps?

DANNER: Yeah. It really was. It was a ( ) now I remember twenty-five per cent of the people in the United States were unemployed. I’m talking about the parents, the providers of families. One in four was out of work. And you know how they were ( ) on the other, it was really 27:00hard times.

BERGE: Oh, yeah, it really was.

DANNER: When I graduated from UC, they offered me at Krogers--big shot today, offered to put on our bulletin board at UC fifteen dollars and forty-five cents a week pay for a graduate. I wasn’t going to do it for that see. But I knew one boy who did it and he did pretty good. That was the prevailing rate for a college graduate.

BERGE: Fifteen dollars.

DANNER: At Krogers. That was a pretty big company. Headquarters in Cincinnati see.

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DANNER: So it was hard times.

BERGE: When you—since you’ve been out of there have you—did you ever meet people you worked with?

DANNER: You mean the CCC?

BERGE: Huh-huh.

DANNER: Well there were about six in Cincinnati that were in different companies I was in.

BERGE: Yeah.

DANNER: And right here at this convention I know about fourteen or fifteen… BERGE: How about the people who did the kind of work you did though, that were Army officers? 28:00DANNER: Most of them are dead now. See I am the only one… BERGE: You were young weren’t you?

DANNER: Yeah. I was young. See I was right out of college one year. So I don’t know many of them now.

BERGE: Let me ask you this question… DANNER: One in Cincinnati is still alive… BERGE: Where did you get the uniforms you put on?

DANNER: Well, they were Army issue, they were actually… BERGE: Now a lot of them—they were used weren’t they?

DANNER: Some were and then later on they had to buy new cause they were planning a new… BERGE: I can remember a boy from my—lived across the street from us—he, his sister and I were pretty good friends—and he was older when he went in, and he came back and I thought he was like a hero you know. He came back in that uniform. But I can remember it had patches in it… DANNER: Oh, sure, sure they were used, but eventually they bought all new stuff. Shoes, shoes and things like that came to ( ). But they used all—there was a lot of surplus and they used all that up see. It was all the surplus they had on CCC boys, but then three million they didn’t have enough they were bigger than the Army was.

BERGE: Did you give them much close order 29:00 drill?

DANNER: No drill. The colored camp decided they wanted to have it see. And they… BERGE: They had fancy drill too.

DANNER: Yeah, they did that and it was the only letter I ever got--and Major Booten got killed in World War II--was in charge of the CCC and he wrote me a letter and he said, “do not deprive the ( ) on this I am throwing it away.” I threw the letter away it never went in my file. But I got reported in for close order drill and finally had to stop it. They had to ( ) the ones that talked me into it and… BERGE: Yeah. A lot of people were worried about that, they thought that the Army was going to use it… DANNER: We had formation and short arms inspection like the Army—one step forward and short arm inspection … BERGE: You don’t ( ) do you?

DANNER: No, (laughter) BERGE: My favorite uniform. (laughs) DANNER: There was really no military in it.

BERGE: But there was in the sense that—it was like the military in the sense that the boys 30:00learned to get along with other boys… DANNER: And the uniforms and the hours… BERGE: And the way they lived… DANNER: And flag raising and retreat and reveille, we had everything that… BERGE: Did you have a lot of esprit de corps? Did those guys feel good about their camp and… DANNER: Oh, sure, you should see how some of them jazz up for inspection. How they would fudge it so they would get a good inspection. See, yeah. We had plenty of that.

BERGE: Of all the camps you worked at, which one did you like the best?

DANNER: Well, in the beginning I liked the Pathfork, but I was kind of new and then the colored camp was where, by far, I did the most good. I really learned of the colored problem in this country, and I am in sympathy with it right now. And I was in the south ( ) of Kentucky where was… BERGE: That is really more south than here.

DANNER: Well hell, a colored person couldn’t be in town without a note in Russellville Kentucky when I was company commander 31:00there. And I see—now we see the progress but it is damn slow yet. I am still in sympathy with the colored people.

BERGE: Well, it was a good experience for you wasn’t it?

DANNER: Yeah, there really was a colored problem, at UC when I took engineering there wasn’t a colored person. Now there are quite a few at UC. UC has, I think eighteen or twenty per cent colored there.

BERGE: Oh, Yeah. Yeah.

DANNER: ( ) but ten students ( )… BERGE: The faculty that’s where ( )… DANNER: ( ) yes the city manager in Cincinnati was colored. I’ve seen them come a long way but it is still way, ways behind, believe me.

BERGE: It was a good experience—you know you are the first person I have talked with that—who was involved with blacks with the CCC. That is an interesting thing. I still would like to know more about those blacks you ( ). How that happened.

DANNER: Why I am certain that they would end up in two places, cause there were no other camps in Kentucky there were any colored. I didn’t know they were there, but that is probably where it got started.

BERGE: Yeah. Yeah.

DANNER: If they had them they had them.

BERGE: Do you remember where they mostly were from? Were they from Kentucky or from other states too? 32:00DANNER: No, the colored were from around Hopkinsville and Russellville… BERGE: That area.

DANNER: They had a supply sergeant from Dayton Ohio and I use to live in Dayton.

BERGE: And he was black too?

DANNER: Well, everybody was black, except two officers. Only two whites in the whole camp and the chaplain when he visited us. He wasn’t stationed there. Incidentally, our chaplain there, Morrow, would ( ).

BERGE: Was he… DANNER: Yeah, he died he… BERGE: What was his name?

DANNER: Morrow—Morrow. He was a Fort Knox.

BERGE: You know when they were building the dew line, my wife was the only American nurse in Alaska… DANNER: Well, she knew Morrow, if she ran into him, cause he had an airplane. Chaplain Morrow, is alive and in Indianapolis. He has lost his mind, his nurse writes me and I send him a box of candy… BERGE: Well my wife was the only nurse up at ( )… DANNER: Well she will know him because he flew all the time, she will know him.

BERGE: (they have both been talking at once all through this exchange) She went up there 33:00and picked up guys you know… DANNER: Wildest parish in the world for a preacher. He was a catholic, a priest and he had a write up in one of the papers here.

BERGE: Well, I will ask her about him.

DANNER: Yes, she must know him. He was… BERGE: Well, I sure do want to thank you and you… DANNER: You got your paper filled out here?

BERGE: Yeah, let me get it filled out, I need you to sign it.

END OF SIDE ONE TAPE ONE END OF INTERVIEW.