Sunday, October 3, 2010
Harvest time, bossing and a bigger God
Dad is back in the camp at Elkton in this letter. It is interesting to read about harvest time and the need for farm labor as everyone in our time frame of 2010 is discussing farm labor and immigration. Some of the men from the camp are hired to go and pick prunes and to be paid after the war, so that is 3 years later. It would be interesting to know if they did get paid. Then he talks about trying to not be too bossy when he is put in charge of projects. I think he worked on this throughout his life time, with some success. I once pointed out to my sister Bonnie that she and I grew up with three people who were the oldest child. Both of our parents and of course our older sister, Carol. All lovable but also ready to take charge. The last item which is of interest to me is that he speaks here of meeting 'good atheists' and then mentions that he still believes in God but that he "seems to be a much bigger God than he use to be". One of my interests in these letters is following the spiritual changes from the evangelical to the unprogrammed Quaker and this letter seems to share part of that process. I kind of like the idea that as his view of God changes the old God becomes bigger and perhaps has more aspects than he did at first.
August 30, 1943
C. P. S. #59 Elkton, Oregon
Aug. 30 1943
Dear Fambily,
I reckon that you can guess that I’m back in Elkton now. I can still type about as well as ever which ain’t so good. I got your letter today and thought I’d better answer it right away. I suppose youn’s are sort of relaxing a bit now that the threshing is done, the straw baled and the tonsils out. I suppose that the younger children will be going back to school now. Eileen is probably starting now and I reckon that Penn won’t get underway for a couple of weeks yet. Well you can tell me about that in the next letter.
I supposed that you are sort of wondering what I’m working at here. We got in Sat. night about 11:30 via Eugene and some shows. One show I’d recmment in “The More The Merrier” with Jean Arthur. We saw a pretty good Shirly Temple show too. “Kathleen”, I think the name was. She isn’t a little girl any more but I thought she was about as good in this kind of part.
Now that I have told you that I’m in camp, here’s what I’m doing. Do you remember my writing about working on the water supply pipe line last spring? Well we have needed a good dam up at the source of our water supply for a long time. Our Project Supt. (Bob Warnak) has finally gotten around to doing something about it. We are going to build a pretty good dam now and I guess that 4 of the fellows that have been surveying with me and I are going to do it. They (Bob and the assistant director, Kit Carson) said I was going to be foreman but you know how I liked to be bossed so I remembered that and try to do as little bossing as possible. We got quit a bit done today but we figure on taking a week to get it finished. After that I understand there will be a couple more portable buildings to be made and I suspect I’ll be bossing that. That is sort of a headache cause we have to make them out of old lumber and they are supposed to fit together when we get ready to put them up.
There is a farm labor shortage here in this county at harvest time like there is any place else and the farmers around here, some of them have some pretty large orchards. One guy that has a lot of prunes to pick has gone through the war man power board of this county (I guess) and arranged fro some of the camp boys to pick prunes on project time. The way I hear it the Gov’t holds the money they should receive if they weren’t in the draft and it will be sent someday after the war is over. The same arrangement that the farm detached Service is on. Well there are 25 men to go to pick prunes next Wed. I’m not so keen about the pay arrangement but I suspect I’ll be doing carpenter work any way. Warren has done some work on farms like helping make hay and such He didn’t seem to mind.
I hate to hear of John Mc leaving. I suppose it sound a little funny cause I wanted him to leave a couple of years ago. I don’t know how things are there now tho, I reckon they are a little dead. I really don’t have a lot of hope for much improvement. I guess I have some of my faith in church. Maybe I have been associating with too many good atheists. Don’t worry about my religion tho I’m just as serious as ever and still believe in God and he seems to be a much bigger God then he used to be.
Well, I have a lot of thing to do. I havn’t unpacked much of my junk yet and really began to live again since being back. Yesterday I went with some of our survey bunch out to our side camp about 22 miles for a visit. I hadn’t been out there since last Jan. when I was helping build the shacks they lived in. I got to see some of my old friends I hadn’t seen all summer. That’s the reason I havn’t got straightened around yet.
Sign’ng off with lots of Love and stuff.
Bernard
Aug. 30 1943
Dear Fambily,
I reckon that you can guess that I’m back in Elkton now. I can still type about as well as ever which ain’t so good. I got your letter today and thought I’d better answer it right away. I suppose youn’s are sort of relaxing a bit now that the threshing is done, the straw baled and the tonsils out. I suppose that the younger children will be going back to school now. Eileen is probably starting now and I reckon that Penn won’t get underway for a couple of weeks yet. Well you can tell me about that in the next letter.
I supposed that you are sort of wondering what I’m working at here. We got in Sat. night about 11:30 via Eugene and some shows. One show I’d recmment in “The More The Merrier” with Jean Arthur. We saw a pretty good Shirly Temple show too. “Kathleen”, I think the name was. She isn’t a little girl any more but I thought she was about as good in this kind of part.
Now that I have told you that I’m in camp, here’s what I’m doing. Do you remember my writing about working on the water supply pipe line last spring? Well we have needed a good dam up at the source of our water supply for a long time. Our Project Supt. (Bob Warnak) has finally gotten around to doing something about it. We are going to build a pretty good dam now and I guess that 4 of the fellows that have been surveying with me and I are going to do it. They (Bob and the assistant director, Kit Carson) said I was going to be foreman but you know how I liked to be bossed so I remembered that and try to do as little bossing as possible. We got quit a bit done today but we figure on taking a week to get it finished. After that I understand there will be a couple more portable buildings to be made and I suspect I’ll be bossing that. That is sort of a headache cause we have to make them out of old lumber and they are supposed to fit together when we get ready to put them up.
There is a farm labor shortage here in this county at harvest time like there is any place else and the farmers around here, some of them have some pretty large orchards. One guy that has a lot of prunes to pick has gone through the war man power board of this county (I guess) and arranged fro some of the camp boys to pick prunes on project time. The way I hear it the Gov’t holds the money they should receive if they weren’t in the draft and it will be sent someday after the war is over. The same arrangement that the farm detached Service is on. Well there are 25 men to go to pick prunes next Wed. I’m not so keen about the pay arrangement but I suspect I’ll be doing carpenter work any way. Warren has done some work on farms like helping make hay and such He didn’t seem to mind.
I hate to hear of John Mc leaving. I suppose it sound a little funny cause I wanted him to leave a couple of years ago. I don’t know how things are there now tho, I reckon they are a little dead. I really don’t have a lot of hope for much improvement. I guess I have some of my faith in church. Maybe I have been associating with too many good atheists. Don’t worry about my religion tho I’m just as serious as ever and still believe in God and he seems to be a much bigger God then he used to be.
Well, I have a lot of thing to do. I havn’t unpacked much of my junk yet and really began to live again since being back. Yesterday I went with some of our survey bunch out to our side camp about 22 miles for a visit. I hadn’t been out there since last Jan. when I was helping build the shacks they lived in. I got to see some of my old friends I hadn’t seen all summer. That’s the reason I havn’t got straightened around yet.
Sign’ng off with lots of Love and stuff.
Bernard
Monday, September 20, 2010
International day of peace and corn
Dad is still in the wilderness in his letter and thinking about the folks at home threshing and the yield. He's writing in August and we are in september. Tim sang yesterday in the international day of peace interfaith chorus celebration. It was a nice gathering. Lots of variety of music and some discussions before hand. I went to one on 'what is peace?" It was interesting. At one point someone said how we had this culture of war and militarism in our country and I wanted to counter that there is a long history of peaceful people as well such as my ancestors and others who came here looking to lead peaceful lives and they did. They do not get a lot of press. Few people know about CPS camps or the people who have worked for peace and opposed war for years. I got a letter today from the IRS, they are not happy when I withhold money because it goes to pay for war. As my grandmother Edwards said, "Peace is a lifetime job".
We enjoyed a dinner of local corn and locally grown chicken tonight. I feel very rich.
We enjoyed a dinner of local corn and locally grown chicken tonight. I feel very rich.
August 24, 1943
Vida, Oregon
8/24/43
Dear Folks,
Well we are out on the civilized end of the trail. We finished our work back in the hills today and moved back here too. A big day. I’m tired and not in a letter writing mood. There are 4 days left this week and we have one day’s work on surveying and a day breaking camp and getting back to Elton. We have gotten on the good side of our boss and he is going to let us leave here Fri. noon with the truck and stop over in Eugene Fri. nite and get back to Elkton Sat. evening. Not bad? He’s been pretty good to us since we got to know each other. We have tomorrow off cause we worked on Sunday while we were up in the mountains. Maybe I’ll feel like adding something tomorrow before they take the mail into Vida. We are about 3 miles from Vida, it’s a 1 store and post office town.
That’s quite a thing to find out I have relations out here. But I won’t have any chance to see if I can find them. You see the first time we came up and found our road closed it was from the Sweet Home side but this time we came up from the south side by trail. Our camp up in the hills here was about 30 miles from Sweet Home. (south east of it) We don’t go near Sweet Home on the way back, cause there is a row of mountains between Sweet Home and our camp and road. We go back through Eugene and that is the only way to get thro from here, through Eugene. So as I say I’ll probably never see Sweet Home again. I suspect that if I had had a chance I would have tried to look up those folks. Well, I’m going to bed.
Good night
Love Bernard.
Now it’s Wed. morning! It’s a bright sunshiny morning and I’m not so sleepy as I was last night.
Al and I and the cook (Jim Ricks) are the only ones left in the camp today. We get (Al and I) today off. While the rest work then we will work tomorrow while the others lay off. All we have to do is set some corners and that is only a 2 or 3 man job and they only have 2 compasses and 3 crews of 2 or 3 each so Al and I wait till tomorrow to do ours.
We three are going in to town (Vida) this morning to get a few groceries and the mail. One doesn’t appreciate daily mail till you are out of reach of it.
I don’t know what I’ll be doing at Elkton yet. Probably carpenter work. I have a sort of carpenter reputation now and I like it pretty well. I really like the shop work best but I don’t think there is much of that anymore.
I get the idea from you letters that threshing has been sort of a long drawn out job this year. Maybe that has kept you from working too hard at it. I also get the idea that the yield isn’t so hot this year. And the corn getting blown over isn’t good. I hope it stands up good enough so you can get a picker through some of it.
Well, we’re going to town pretty soon [I] guess. I’ll sign off
Yours Bernard
8/24/43
Dear Folks,
Well we are out on the civilized end of the trail. We finished our work back in the hills today and moved back here too. A big day. I’m tired and not in a letter writing mood. There are 4 days left this week and we have one day’s work on surveying and a day breaking camp and getting back to Elton. We have gotten on the good side of our boss and he is going to let us leave here Fri. noon with the truck and stop over in Eugene Fri. nite and get back to Elkton Sat. evening. Not bad? He’s been pretty good to us since we got to know each other. We have tomorrow off cause we worked on Sunday while we were up in the mountains. Maybe I’ll feel like adding something tomorrow before they take the mail into Vida. We are about 3 miles from Vida, it’s a 1 store and post office town.
That’s quite a thing to find out I have relations out here. But I won’t have any chance to see if I can find them. You see the first time we came up and found our road closed it was from the Sweet Home side but this time we came up from the south side by trail. Our camp up in the hills here was about 30 miles from Sweet Home. (south east of it) We don’t go near Sweet Home on the way back, cause there is a row of mountains between Sweet Home and our camp and road. We go back through Eugene and that is the only way to get thro from here, through Eugene. So as I say I’ll probably never see Sweet Home again. I suspect that if I had had a chance I would have tried to look up those folks. Well, I’m going to bed.
Good night
Love Bernard.
Now it’s Wed. morning! It’s a bright sunshiny morning and I’m not so sleepy as I was last night.
Al and I and the cook (Jim Ricks) are the only ones left in the camp today. We get (Al and I) today off. While the rest work then we will work tomorrow while the others lay off. All we have to do is set some corners and that is only a 2 or 3 man job and they only have 2 compasses and 3 crews of 2 or 3 each so Al and I wait till tomorrow to do ours.
We three are going in to town (Vida) this morning to get a few groceries and the mail. One doesn’t appreciate daily mail till you are out of reach of it.
I don’t know what I’ll be doing at Elkton yet. Probably carpenter work. I have a sort of carpenter reputation now and I like it pretty well. I really like the shop work best but I don’t think there is much of that anymore.
I get the idea from you letters that threshing has been sort of a long drawn out job this year. Maybe that has kept you from working too hard at it. I also get the idea that the yield isn’t so hot this year. And the corn getting blown over isn’t good. I hope it stands up good enough so you can get a picker through some of it.
Well, we’re going to town pretty soon [I] guess. I’ll sign off
Yours Bernard
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Wilderness and Women's retreats
In Dad's letter he is off in the wilderness. I just spent the weekend at Claire Leonard's near Reserve at a New Mexico Women's retreat weekend. Reserve is on the northwest side of the Gila Mountains in Catron county. Claire's place included a yurt and her house and some beautiful land. We had women sleeping in the yurt and on the deck and in cars and in tents.
We did a wonderful hike up a mesa on Saturday, did some worship sharing and other sharing on both days. It was an enjoyable time, without mules or mosquitoes. We've been doing the retreats for 32 or 33 years, twice a year. It's a wonderful format, we pick a theme at the end of one retreat and a date and who will be in charge for the next one. We keep the cost as low as possible and alternate between the inexpensive places and the more expensive places which helps. There is a wonderful feeling of gathering at the retreats, sometimes I do not notice the change and the renewing aspect of it until I return and realize that I have relaxed and centered myself.
We did a wonderful hike up a mesa on Saturday, did some worship sharing and other sharing on both days. It was an enjoyable time, without mules or mosquitoes. We've been doing the retreats for 32 or 33 years, twice a year. It's a wonderful format, we pick a theme at the end of one retreat and a date and who will be in charge for the next one. We keep the cost as low as possible and alternate between the inexpensive places and the more expensive places which helps. There is a wonderful feeling of gathering at the retreats, sometimes I do not notice the change and the renewing aspect of it until I return and realize that I have relaxed and centered myself.
August 15, 1943 - The Wilderness
The Wilderness
8/15/43
Dear Folks,
Well here we are, only 6 miles by trail from civilization. But what a 6 miles. Our boss said it was the worst trail he had ever packed over. It is terribly steep. We are about 3,000 ft. here and I imagine we climbed about 2,000 of that in the middle 2 miles of our trip and that is a lot to climb with pack mules. We are going to work on Sundays to get out of here as quick as possible so we worked today. This was our first day’s work here. We went down 1300 feet in the first 1/8 mile and up 11,00 in the last half of our mile today. It was kind of bushy too. Then we had to walk an hour before we were back at camp. It has been pretty hot up here and the mosquitoes are small but many. We sleep with our head covered and eat with towels over our heads. I’m going to take a picture of the gang eating sometime. We started up here yesterday morning (Sat.) and arrived at our spring at 3:00. We lost a couple of hours when one of the mules got sick and decided to lay down on the trail, pack and all. This happened in a narrow place close to a small steam. We got the pack off and then he tried to roll and slid off the trail and down next to a big log and then he couldn’t get up. We really had a time. We finally got some ropes on his feet and turned him over and got him up. We left him there and went on. You see the boss was going back after another load, which he brought today. The mules are just fresh off the pasture and they are pretty soft and fat so it was rather hard on them. We have a camp at the civilized end of the trail and the truck driver is staying there and he will ride a saddle horse in every day or two and bring us the mail and fresh bread and stuff.
This page is tomorrow from the other page or that page is yesterday from this. It will be a long time before you get this cause the fellow with the horse isn’t coming up till Wed. I may add some more if anything if anything of note happens (This sure is lousy paper I hope you can I hope you can read it.)
Thanks a lot for the “slug” of “bucks” Dad. I can’t do much with money out here in the tall timbers, but I’ll get out before long. Thanks for the gas stamps. The too will be put to good use.
I had heard that Ab was going to Conn. to the farm project but didn’t know about Opal’s going. That will be great. They will be happier that way.
You can keep the CPS magazine. As they have ones at Elkton.
Well, So Long for a while.
Tue—Nothing has happened in particular to-day. It is a little cooler and the mosquitoes a little fewer and less ambition.
Love Bernard.
8/15/43
Dear Folks,
Well here we are, only 6 miles by trail from civilization. But what a 6 miles. Our boss said it was the worst trail he had ever packed over. It is terribly steep. We are about 3,000 ft. here and I imagine we climbed about 2,000 of that in the middle 2 miles of our trip and that is a lot to climb with pack mules. We are going to work on Sundays to get out of here as quick as possible so we worked today. This was our first day’s work here. We went down 1300 feet in the first 1/8 mile and up 11,00 in the last half of our mile today. It was kind of bushy too. Then we had to walk an hour before we were back at camp. It has been pretty hot up here and the mosquitoes are small but many. We sleep with our head covered and eat with towels over our heads. I’m going to take a picture of the gang eating sometime. We started up here yesterday morning (Sat.) and arrived at our spring at 3:00. We lost a couple of hours when one of the mules got sick and decided to lay down on the trail, pack and all. This happened in a narrow place close to a small steam. We got the pack off and then he tried to roll and slid off the trail and down next to a big log and then he couldn’t get up. We really had a time. We finally got some ropes on his feet and turned him over and got him up. We left him there and went on. You see the boss was going back after another load, which he brought today. The mules are just fresh off the pasture and they are pretty soft and fat so it was rather hard on them. We have a camp at the civilized end of the trail and the truck driver is staying there and he will ride a saddle horse in every day or two and bring us the mail and fresh bread and stuff.
This page is tomorrow from the other page or that page is yesterday from this. It will be a long time before you get this cause the fellow with the horse isn’t coming up till Wed. I may add some more if anything if anything of note happens (This sure is lousy paper I hope you can I hope you can read it.)
Thanks a lot for the “slug” of “bucks” Dad. I can’t do much with money out here in the tall timbers, but I’ll get out before long. Thanks for the gas stamps. The too will be put to good use.
I had heard that Ab was going to Conn. to the farm project but didn’t know about Opal’s going. That will be great. They will be happier that way.
You can keep the CPS magazine. As they have ones at Elkton.
Well, So Long for a while.
Tue—Nothing has happened in particular to-day. It is a little cooler and the mosquitoes a little fewer and less ambition.
Love Bernard.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Dentists and end of summer
I sure got busy since I was able to post last. As school starts up I have less time. I am taking a couple of courses on online teaching, which are interesting. In this post, Dad goes to the dentist for $4. I went this week for a crown which will cost me $300. Our family does not have great teeth. Both our parents lost or had all their teeth pulled at some point. It was then that Mom said she felt really old. I enjoyed the idealism of the guys in the camp with Dad and wonder, what happened to the guys with the boat and if they were able to use it to help people out.
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