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Meet Me at the Corner
A former newspaper reporter who has lived in Franklin for nearly 40 years, Marjorie is active in several Franklin and Hales Corners organizations.
Happy 75th Anniversary to the CCC
By Marjorie Pagel
Sunday, Nov 23 2008, 08:06 PM
The 75th Anniversary of the Civilian Conservation Corps was celebrated locally last week at Boerner Botanical Gardens. It was a well-attended event, and though only a handful of people could share firsthand experiences of this chapter in American history, almost everyone could remember someone -- a father, an uncle, or a grandfather -- who had been part of the CCC.
Young men between 17 and 25 earned $30 a month -- $25 of which was sent directly home to “ma and pa” to make sure they had enough to eat. They worked hard for the $5 they got to keep: planting trees, building roads and bridges, and helping to develop park land. These young men working in the 1930s left a legacy which all of us continue to enjoy today.
During the celebration, members of the Milwaukee Community Service Corps quietly read the names of all 7,000 Wisconsin men who were part of the CCC. Undoubtedly, there are more names, and Chris Litzau, Executive Director of the Milwaukee Community Service Corps, hopes to hear who these other workers were and publish them on a CCC website. For more information, you may contact Litzau at 414-372-9040.
There were several special treats in store for the guests, including a taped rendition of the bugle call, “Reveille” – played four times all the way through. (County Executive Scott Walker joked that he’d like a copy of that tape for his teenage son, because it would take that many bugle calls to rouse him.) The taped bugles played again at the end – “Taps” -- just before the soup lunch was served.
The sing-a-long of the “National CCC Song” featured all six verses followed each time by this chorus:
“It’s up in the morning and work all day under a boiling sun,
Then back to camp with darn good pals when an honest day is done.
Now some are good and some are bad as fellows will always be,
But we all stick together and now I’m glad that I’m in the CCC.”
My favorite verse was the last:
“We’ve worked in many places – over forest, gully and hill.
And when Franklin D. says, “Do it, boys,” you can bet your life, we will.
And if it weren’t for men like him, I don’t know where I’d be.
Now I’ve got a home no more to roam, and thanks to Franklin D.”
Litzau used the opportunity to draw some correlations between those lean economic times of the Depression and this country’s current economic crisis. In a recent article from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, he was quoted as saying, "From the worst of times, you have the greatest human spirit arise.” He sees the Milwaukee Community Service Corps as “a grandchild of the CCC.” (www.jsonline.com/business/34563724.html)
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