DIPPING INTO THE PAST: OUR DADS AND THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS : PART I

Last month here in the U.S.A. we celebrated Veteran's Day. The following incredible photograph taken after the U.S and Allies retook Paris shows the faces of these men whose road to get there was far from easy. There is a whole series about my Uncle Ziggy (right front row, second in from right) and my Aunt Alveda in site listed below the photo as well as those before and after it.

http://schoolstvillage.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-village-and-love-story-camp-myles.html 

World War II has its own tale to tell.  But, prior to that event there is another

story.  It speaks of the resilience of this country and the leadership of a President faced with enormous problems.  It is about the young men of America and the history of the country itself,  the story of the Civilian Conservation Corps. It would become known as the C.C.C's.  In many ways the story helped to create the courageous spirit of the men we see in the above photograph. 

While in New England this past summer I made time to visit the

Bristol County Historical Society. Browsing through the shelves  I found two small booklets about the Civilian Conservation Corps.  Remembering my Dad had been part of the C.C.C's  I added the booklets to my treasures.  I figured I would do a little post one day on the subject.  Like anything else, the little booklets were only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  The subject was not only 

relevant to my family and the Village but to the country as a whole.

I was in up to my ears and learning every minute of my research.

Because the subject is so vast,  this is the first of a series,  the first being an introduction.

Often TV interviews demonstrate, our young do not know their history. I generalize but it still seems to woefully be the case.  Perhaps a member of your family was part of the C.C.C.'s  or perhaps you will just learn something fascinating about the resilience this country.  It was not always the divided and worrisome place it appears to be today.

This  dedication of this statue of  a  CCC worker took

place in the Freetown State Forest in Massachusetts in 2002.

Freetown Forest is between Taunton and Fall River.  It is noteworthy for

the fact that is considered by many to be haunted....

 Alongside the statue in the photograph below is my nephew Peter Nascimento.

Peter has two grandfathers who served in the CCC: Frank Souza, my father

and Joe Nascimento, Peter's other grandfather. both of them

Village boys. Peter has his own story of courage to tell, but right

now he is listening to this one and finding one more reason why he 

loved those two grandfathers so very much.

  

The tale of the C.C.C is a fascinating one.

The Village played a part in this National endeavor.  Faced with the same

extremes of a debilitating Depression beginning in 1929  people in the Village ,as always, helped each other. We read earlier that the Portuguese American Civic Club on School Street was founded to help families in the Village that could not make ends meet.

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The P.A.C.C. , as it is still called, helped its members find employment on many levels, including the federal.  They likely helped them, including my Dad and others, to get into the Civilian Conservation Corps.  Keep in mind the national income was cut in half and a quarter of the work force in America was unemployed.  I am proud that my Village stood up and helped its people.  

 Soup lines and queues for employment snaked throughout the country.  In Washington D.C. you can find the impressive memorial to FDR remembering those lines.  My husband got into the spirit of the moving monument by standing at the end of the line of men whose posture speaks volumes.

In 1927 my Grandfather Souza, age 42 years, drowned leaving behind my Grandmother and seven children in the little house on School Street.  When 1929 rolled around and the Depression started it must have hit them like a bolt of lightening.  My grandfather had been a successful businessman and suddenly the life of that family was turned upside down. 

In the late 20's  mill owners in Taunton with the means to moved south.  The textile industry was not as strong as before. One reason is that women's fashions had changed.  As shorter skirts became vogue material for their clothing changed from 19 1/2 yards in 1913 to 7 yards in 1928.  Six Taunton mills closed and the job situation went from employing 235,000 in 1923 to 96,000 in 1932 .

From 178 mills in Massachusetts, the number dropped to 57.

In 1932  20 tenement houses built on Middleboro Ave to house mill workers were auctioned off for $5, 850. a per  house total of $142. 50.

It was estimated that in those years there were people near starvation in Taunton.

The P.A.C.C. gave priority to those families most in need in the Village.

Here is an interesting aside....did you know?

Here is a bit of history I bet you did not know- I surely did not.  When FDR ran 

for President in 1932, William Foster was the Presidential nominee for the

 Communist party in that election. His vote was minuscule. 

 However, he was  born in Taunton ,MA in February of 1881!

The plaque at the base of the statue is Freetown, MA

The story of the C.C.C. is amazing on many levels. The first is its speed of inception. In our time, there is deepening stagnation of ideas and solutions to so many problems.  

Not back then. "Shovel Ready" meant something in FDR's time.

March 9, 1933- mere weeks after taking office, FDR ordered his senior staff to draw up a plan to put 500,000 men to work.

March 21 - a modest proposal for 250,000 jobs was sent to Congress.

March 31- Congress approved and signed into law the plan giving broad discretionary               authority to the President for setting up the "Emergency Conservation 

Work Program." It got its new name in 1937.

Incredibly, the C.C.C. was successfully supervised by four Cabinet Departments: the War Dept for housing administration and housing and discipline. The Departments of Agriculture and the Interior planned and organized work and the Department of Labor selected and enrolled applicants via state and local relief departments.

Here is an interesting document.  FDR tried to get the amount of money 

it would cost per day perworker down from $1.92 per day.  

Boom!  "Bringing an army of unemployed into healthful surroundings," Roosevelt argued, "would help eliminate the threats to social liberty that enforced idleness had created."  Keep in mind that this was not a welfare program it was a WORK PROGRAM.

None too soon.  

Above: FDR visiting a C.C.C Camp in 1933. Skyland, Virginia.

Below are some of the boys from Taunton who were in the C.C.C.'s

 taken March 12, 1937. Location unknown.

Front Row center: Joseph Murphy, Back Row: Louis Robino.

Perhaps you recognize others. There are none of the

Village boys that I have found. I did find their names

and they will be in the next post.

Lots more to come!

Sources: I will list sources in the next post.

FALLING BACK INTO THE LEAVES OF MEMORY

Photography by Ryan Smith

I am no longer in the region of glowing Autumns. Yet, just recently visiting

the mountains of North Carolina my memory taste buds received enough to

stir my memoirs. Some of the photographs from there appear in this post. The 

above was taken by my nephew who has inherited his grandmother's photography genes.

I have taken to bringing a little red notebook with me on trips.  I write when

the spirit moves me. I absorbed the ghosts of the autumns from my childhood while in the mountains this year. The ghosts were benign and kind and spoke to me of misty autumns. 

Now, in these November days even in the

South the crickets have an autumn sound waking my long gone 

 childhood experiences.

I remember....

the feel of gardens entering their winter slumber.  Are we meant during the days of autumn to go into some quiet protected place as well?   Those of us who were fortunate enough to live back in another time may well feel that we are called to do just that.  

"The magic of Autumn has seized the countryside; now that the sun

is not ripening anything it shines for the sake of the golden age, for

the sake of Eden, to please the moon for all I know."

Elizabeth Cutsworth

Autumn in the Village where I spent my childhood was a magic season. It entered the turning paths of our imagination where we found myth and possibility. There was enough silence in the Falls of my childhood that the drying leaves played by the wind created a scintillating sound that was a music unlike any other.  The pines plucked their needles to

produce their own lullaby, especially right outside a child's window.

The child's imagination could be slowly nurtured by the night wind rattling old

wooden sashed windows and gently nurtured by shadows of big trees in the backyard.

As children we collected the bright leaves, ecstatic in their dying.

They were used for collage, for tracing and then coloring, for

dry bouquets for our mothers.

Sweaters and jackets kept us swathed in the scent of mothballs where

they had been hidden all summer.

                                     We began to nestle into our dreams of paths yet to come.
                              Nothing like shushing one's feet through dry leaves on the way

home from school to nudge such dreams.  They gathered in great piles

against old tall wooden fences waiting for a child

to plunge into them with laughing glee.

The elegance of autumn in New England.  Color upon color reaching high, like a dowager in her finest garb. A last hoorah! The leaves must touch each other to play their Fall song.  Many softly let themselves join Mother Earth.  Mellowed and wizened they gracefully slip silently to sleep.

Even back in my childhood Autumn held its own traditions.  It held the promise of Halloween. It made you hold your breath passing by a cemetery, expecting to see the Headless Horseman come galloping through.  The violence of today's video games and movies were not around to stifle our imaginings. Even before us,  poets like Robert Frost had created poems that nurtured our childhood creativity. There was silence abounding to let all of that pass through. Cell phone were way in the future and everything let us be.

The creativity of the Autumn palate.  The creativity of Halloween and how we were part of it. Simply a part of it.   The safety of the Village on the eve of Halloween. A gaggle of children slowly processing from house to house. Hooted Trick or Treats (never a trick...) and giggles upon giggles as we spied who some masked child really was.  The fained surprise of the adults greeting us at each house. All the porch lights were lit to welcome each and all.

                                                          boysandghoulspodbean.com


Innocence wrapped in the colors of Autumn. Costumes were patched together with our own old clothes or that of our parents. Black mascara worked wonders. We were who our imaginations wished us to be and we acted accordingly. A bedsheets with eyes cut out was perfect. An old mop made a wig for a witch, Cardboard was always helpful.  Pillow cases made the bags for the candy we collected. An old soft hat of our dad's pulled down over a cheap paper mask, one of his jackets so big on a little boy that the sleeves dragged along the ground.

Autumn is a time to wrap oneself up in the memories of a childhood in the 50's hiding oneself from the noise and anger of the world around us. Values were clear back then, like the shine of red leaves and the gift of an apple from a neighbor on Halloween Eve.  How blessed those who can go back and pull out friendships and trust their remembering.

     Milkweed in Autumn

photography by my mother

Angelina Motta Souza

WE HAVE LEARNED MORE ABOUT THE TAUNTON OLD LADIES' HOME !

 It is clear that a lot of folks enjoyed the last post's story of the Taunton Old Ladies' Home. It is gratifying to hear that it definitely rang a memory bell.  Also, it was a surprise to hear  from Peter Roache partner at Donellon, Orcutt, Patch and Stallard, Certified Public Accountants who now own and occupy 96 Broadway, the former Old Ladies' Home. The building has been lovingly restored with photos and stories of the Home on display in their Office.  Mr. Roache sent in a short history written by one of the Founders of the Home.  This allows me, along with another article from the Taunton Gazette from 1969, to add another post on the subject.

A great big thank you to everyone who has helped to add more history to this Taunton historical tale.

A History of the Taunton  Female Charitable Association

by S.R.B.
1959

In this post I am paraphrasing the above history of the Association and its work adding some touches of my own.The Ladies' of the Association will kindly forgive me for doing some enlightening and connecting. The initials on the history are S.R.B. so it is assumed that Susanna Brewer wrote the paper although it is a dated very late for that.

Mrs. Brewer tells us there were 35 members and a printed Constitution for the Association. The officers were: Mrs. Susanna Brewer, First Directress, Mrs. Abby West,  Second Directress, Mrs. Sally Shepard, Treasurer, and Mrs. Harriet Leanard, Secretary.  The managers were Mrs. Sally Carver, Mrs. Eleanor Hodges, Mrs. Anna Ingell and Mrs. Mary Bush.

(One site elsewhere says that Mrs. Morton was First Directress, but we will not quibble. They were both early involved.)

The Taunton Female  Charitable Association had its beginning with tea table chats after the war of 1812.  The women organized in 1816 and dreamed of sponsoring a comfortable home for the elderly needy women of Taunton.  (a 1969 Taunton Daily Gazette article wrote that they were planning on caring for elderly Protestant women in the Home, but that did not come up in Ms. Brewer's writeup. Still, as there was rampant anti-Catholisism about for many years in the country, this would be no surprise.)

Early records of the Women's Association were lost but not the treasurer's information.  Susanna Brewer tells us that the gentleman from Savannah who donated $2,000 was Edward Padelford. (It is interesting to note that many streets in Taunton bear these names.)

In November of 1870 a house at 1871 Franklin St. in the City was bought for the sum of $4,000 from Philander Williams for the purpose of opening the Ladies' Home and in January 1871, it was opened with "appropriate exercises".  It served as the Home for 15 years.

Water came from a well in the front yard and a cistern was there as well.  In 1871, the Association  "voted to sell the outhouse as it was no longer used." The Matron received $5 a week and the servant, $3. There was no dearth of applicants for admission. "One was denied entrance until she promised to give up smoking."

There was a Board of seven gentlemen elected as advisors with one acting as auditor. There were annual fairs held at Wilbur's, The Armory or Music Halls. Sometimes these were run for 2 days and brought in a "goodly sum."

The Taunton Armory 

1907 postcard
https://www.cardcow.com

The Admission fee to be admitted to the Home was $150 in 1887,  $200 in 1903, in 1907 $250, in 1910, $300, in 1924, $400, in 1958  $500 and in 1959, $800.

The gift of a lot by Mrs. Sarah King spurred on the desire for a new building and eventually enough was raised to construct the Home on 96 Broadway.  Meanwhile, a man "paid $6 for the privilege of pasturing his cow upon the lot."

The original contract for building the Home was $8.800, the contract is now at the Office at 96 Broadway. The $65 for the fence was extra. The contract is dated 1885 which is not in line with other historical accounts but no matter. Storytelling  certainly does not always purport historical accuracy.

Broadway as to probably looked in 1878

One can imagine a cow grazing here.

Not the Broadway as it looks today.
Source: Cardcow

In 1885, writes our historian, a contract was signed with Franklin D. Williams to build a fifteen room house with heating and grading by Walter Park, Architect,  for $10,000 on 96 Broadway.

When the building was done the "family" moved in.  Six of the city's well known physicians inspected the Home to insure its safety from a sanitary standpoint.  They were Drs. Presbrey, Hubbard, Murphy, Paige, Jones and Hayward, ( Two names stand out for me: Presbrey was the last name of the Director of Nurses at Taunton State Hospital in the 1960's and Murphy was the physician related to the first women surgeon, Dr. evelyn Murphy, in Taunton written about in the post cited below, you will find it a delightful read and includes information on the Murphy physician line, we assume it was the father-in-law of Dr. Evelyn Murphy alluded to in the history here):

http://schoolstvillage.blogspot.com/2013/11/another-taunton-medical-luminary-dr_10.html).

During the war years an astonishing amount of canning was done from the vegetable garden at the Home.  When Susanna Brewer wrote her history in 1959 she said that a bequest had meant there was an elevator,  a television and that the Home was comfortable for all of its residents and staff. (paraphrased). To comply with state laws a fire alarm system was installed then as well. A reader tells us that growing up nearby she remembers that the Ladies often made fudge for the neighborhood children.

The photographs below are from a Taunton Daily Gazette article in April of 1969 when the Taunton Women's Association celebrated its 140th anniversary and the Home was still thriving.

A  Golden Tea was occasioned for this anniversary, the festivities
patterned set in 1829 by the first fundraises of the Association.

Recognize anyone?

 

                                                            Below is  Rachel Morse

who was feted on this occasion for her years as a

member of The Taunton Female Charitable Association

following in her mother's footsteps.

It was women like Rachel and her mother who made it all possible.

She was given an orchid for the occasion. Rachel Morse joined
the Association in 1909.

.

The article tells us that an exquisite red and white quilt done by the Home's very first residents was

exhibited. Each square was embroidered with a verse and the initials of the woman who composed them.  It was given to the Bristol County Historical Society. I would guess that it is still exhibited there and kept with great care.  If you go there, take a photo for me.. 

That would round up our history beautifully!

         

I am so pleased to be able to add more to our Old Ladies' Home story and that of the Taunton Female Charitable Association that founded and managed it. There are many,  many stories of the Village and the City of Taunton that just pop up here and there begging that to be remembered and told.  I almost never know what is coming next!

Sources:

From the Research Dept. at the Taunton Public Library

Taunton Daily Gazette Article in April, 1969

Rachel Morse Feted at Anniversary Tea

......

Peter Roache CPA
Donellon, Orcutt, Patch and Stallard
Certified Public Accountants

96 Broadway, Taunton, MA

From their records, the last person
to leave the Home passed away in 1984.

                                                                             .......

      Visit the Old Colony  Historical Society on Church Green in Taunton 

for more information about the Ladies' Home.

                                                 http://www.oldcolonyhistorymuseum.org