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I was born in Knox County Kentucky, January 6 1924. my early years were in the great depression. I remember those days very well. Although I didn't know it was a depression, I just thought that was the way life was. We had plenty of food, for we raised our own vegetables, pork, milk cows and chickens, Chickens were important We always got eggs and "set" hens and hatched chicks, raised them to be fryers, and laying hens for eggs to eat. We took the eggs to the store and swapped them for items like salt, sugar, and things that we needed..... but some times old mister hawk would swoop down and get one of the little chickens. My Dad would tie the old hen out in the view of his twelve gauge shotgun and when old man hawk would make his run my Dad would shoot him down.
My Dad, Chester and I would hunt rabbits, and other small game to go on the table. We built rabbit traps. Several different types, my Dad taught us how to make things that was useful during these times. Not only traps but most any kind of toy or tool. We made, sling shots, bow and arrows, whistles, pop guns, sleds and wagons. Sometimes we would sell rabbits to customer's of my Dad's. Dad sold farm produce to people at Corbin. We lived well, except we had very little money. This meant very few clothes. We went bare foot to school during the warm weather, but before it got cold Dad would go out and cut a stick to measure our feet for some shoes. We wore a lot of hand-me-down clothes but they were warm.
THE C.C.C.'s
After Roosevelt was elected president to overcome the great depression by developing several government programs like the W.P.A. and C.C.C.'s also hydroelectric power dams, Norris dam was one of the better known ones. My brother, Chester went first in the C.C.C. He stayed two years in California, (that was all the time one could spend with the C.C.C.'s.) He never came home during the two years.We had always been a close family, we all missed him very much.
Next I dropped out of school and went in the C.C.C. I had just had my 17th birthday, one was not supposed to go in until one was 18, but it seemed that a little lie of that type was not too bad. By now Dad was not a well person and the family needed some money to live on and this was the main contribution to my families support. Thirty dollars every month was a lot of money. My family was sent twenty four dollars and I received six.
Luster Partin, my cousin,and I went in the C.C.C. together, we enlisted at Pineville Kentucky, then was sent on to Chapel, Kentucky. and was stationed there. Building roads and fighting forest fires was the main line of duty there. As I remember I went on 20 some odd fire fights that year.
Luster got a good job, he was a truck driver. I took the test for driver but I raked the gears too bad and flunked the test! So it was back to the pick and shovel gang for me!
While we were stationed in Chapel, Ky, the mode of transportation home and back was, in part, by the L&N railroad. People referred to us as hobo's. Pineville was a place that was rough on hobo's. One night on our way home, we were on a freight and it stopped in Pineville. We saw lights coming up the train checking for hobo's and maybe doing some inspecting of the train. We jumped off in the weeds and they went past , when it was all clear we got back on and humped down on top of a coal car and left Pineville. I always remember one night coming home Luster and I were hoboing and under the end of a coal hopper. I guess the way I was sitting the muscle in my leg got a cramp in it and I had a hard time making it let go.
One night while we were there, the great northern lights shined over the mountains. Great streaks appeared. I had never heard of anything like that, much less seeing it first hand. This made us think of every mean thing we'd had ever done. We thought the end of the world had done come.
One day some of us went to Old Fuzzy Owl Chappel's. We had seen him pass the camp. He had a big white beard. That is where he got the name, Fuzzy. He made home brew and whiskey and all sorts of good things like that. He had some home brew that would give out a little puff of blue smoke when you opened a bottle. It tasted pretty good! I drank just a little of it and I never did get to the Whiskey!
The fall of 1941 we were transferred to Malta, Idaho. There we cleared the land of sagebrush and built a reservoir up in the mountains. This was to be a water supply to irrigate the land that we had cleared and use it for growing purposes. I remember one day that winter it got down to 32 degrees below zero! But it didn't seem too bad cold, for it was a different kind of cold, kinda dry I guess.
When we went to Idaho there was some old timers in the camp there and they took a disliking to us, why I don't know, we were good boys! But they caught one of our boys and gave him a GI bath, that was with a scrub brush. Really he did look better but we were mad about it, so we went and got the leader. He was in the mess hall, and in the kitchen they had some large knives. He got one with the longest blade, so we were not foolish, we backed off. Well he did end up taking a bath. made us feel a little better.
One Sunday morning we were all called out and assembled. The announcement was made that Pearl Harbor had been bombed by the Japanese. Not long after that Luster and I left the C.C.C. and came back home.
Let me say this! That for sure this was a working bunch of boys! This outfit had no lazy people, just a little mean and I am proud to have served in the C.C.C.
By: John Ray Partin
