A BUCK A DAY: MORE ABOUT TAUNTON AND VILLAGE C.C.C. BOYS

 I began the last post with the fact that we had celebrated Veteran's Day just the month before. A few days ago we remembered Pearl Harbor which ushered 

in U.S. involvement in W.W. II.

Today, the country faces a different threat and we look back at our heritage and our history for the answers to facing our future.  Just something to keep in mind as we read here of the history that helped shape who we are today.

Driving through the Blue Ridge Parkway one has to think about all the hard work that those young men in the C.C.C.'s did to fashion and shape the roads that give us such joy today.  That is true about so many locales throughout the country, that never would have been restored and we may take for granted.

A view of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina

Photo:  Sandra Pineault

Young men from the ages of 18 to 25 years were eligible to apply to the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.'s).   Each work camp held around 200 men.  Later any Army veteran could apply.  The men worked 8 hours a day.  By the time the U.S. entered W.W. II more than 2.5 million men had served in more than 4,500 camps throughout the country.  

 On May 19th, 1933, Taunton had an initial quota of 75 men, most from E. Taunton, MA  who went to Fort Devens. MA.  They would be paid $1 a day to fight forest fires, beach erosion, develop state and national parks and help in national emergencies such as hurricanes and the like.  From 1933 to 1938 Taunton had 1,190 enrollees.  Over the years these young men sent back $16,000 back annually to their families.

Around 9,000 men a day were recruited in the country as a whole.  There soon were floating libraries for them: chaplains, radios, games, baseball, football and basketball. It was a great opportunity for further educational  endeavors, too.  My Dad, Frank Souza, learned to barber in the Camp he was in and though that was not his avocation, he always cut my kid brother Frank's hair. The photo below was taken in the side yard of 20 Blinn's Ct. in the Village, 1948.  My Uncle John "Bunny" watches and chats.Whatever Camp my father was in, he said it was very cold, and often 

when he started to shave someone he had to shave off the ice first...

My father was in a camp in Massachusetts. He tried to enlist in the Army but was 4F due to stomach ulcers.  It is interesting to note that many of the young men enlisting in the C.C.C.'s were malnourished and suffering from nutritional conditions.  One writer indicated that not only were they under nourished and under developed boys, but many of them did not know what it was to work. The C.C.C. offered them a healthful way of life among other positive things.  As far as we can recall our Dad may have been in a Camp in Pittsfield, MA. 

There is a possibility that my father is in this photograph, second row fourth from left. My Dad did say he was at a camp in Massachusetts and his posture really looks like him.

We do know that John Richard is in the first row and Matthew Wasylow as well (numbers 6 and 7 respectively - from the Nowak booklet). Maryan L. Nowak , a resident of Taunton researched and compiled many names of Taunton men who served in the C.C.C.  His was not an exhaustive list but it is a good one. His booklets were published in 2002 .

C.C.C. records have proved a boon for genealogists as there are many photographs such as the ones included in this post.  However, there are less photos of Massachusetts men than in other states.  Here, though, is a great one from a Camp in Chicopee, MA, clearly in the winter.

                         A photograph of one of the barracks of the Camp in Chickapee, MA.

                            White Pine Camp, Idaho, probably what all the camps looked like.

From the Village, these names and where they were stationed can be found in Nowak's booklet:  James Aleixo, Great Barrington, MA, Theodore Aleixo, Warren, NH, Joaquim Bernadino, Freetown, MA, Antone Cordeiro , Suncook, NH, and then in two camps on Colorado, Jos. Costa, East Wallingford, Vermont, Joseph Dias, Antone Mello, Jr, Danbury, NH, ,Joseph Nascinemtno, Freetown, MA., Manuel Silva, East Wallingford, Vermont, Albine Vierra, Wilmington, Vermont.

I have only skimmed the surface of this vast subject. If you have had someone in your family involved in the C.C.C. you can find a plethora of information.  Here are just some of the sources. State sites contain photographs in most cases.

RESOURCES:

A Buck A Day- Taunton men in the Civilian Conservation Corps 1933-1942. Find this booklet and another supplement booklet at the Bristol Country Historical Society.  There are many names of Taunton men here and a few photos.

........

Into the Woods: The First Year of the Civilian Conservation Corps: Joseph M. Speakman 

Find this online.

.......

National Association of the Civilian Conservation Corps...Online.

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MA Dept of Conservation and Recreation CCC. Online.
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C.C.C. Legacy- Online. An incredible amount of information including photographs state by state.
http://www.ccclegacy.org/CCC_History_Center.html
.....
"Hard Times Legacy": - Boston.com, May 17, 2009
http://www.boston.com/travel/explorene/articles/2009/05/17/hard_times_legacy/
.......
Elderweb- "1930: The Great Depression."
http://www.elderweb.com/book/appendix/1930-great-depression
.....
Taunton Daily Gazette: "Fall River: 1938: Rebounding from the Depression." May 21, 2014http://www.tauntongazette.com/article/20140521/BLOGS/140529125
.......
Heritage Zen: C.C.C. in New Hampshire
http://heritagezen.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-civilian-conservation-corps-in-new_19.html
.......

A History of Taunton: William F. Hanna.

.......

             Photographs from my own archives as well as from many of the sites listed above.

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