Memories

I would like to finish my articles about Bob Renshaw and his family. He has such a detailed account of their homestead days and activities of people during those years. Renshaw even tells of his years in the court house as the clerk and recorder.

In 1942 he was not elected and made the following statement: “I felt lost and hopeless, wondering at age fifty-four what possible road to take.”

He made contact with the Banker Life Company of Des Moines, Iowa to sell life insurance. After a training course and test he was given a license and later was asked to take the Sidney, MT area, where he worked for several years. He was very successful and earned many honors. Bob and Grace Renshaw both worked until 1954, when they retired and moved back to Ekalaka. In Ekalaka, they celebrated their sixty-second wedding anniversary. Renshaw ended his Shifting Scenes article with this statement: “We finished our years in the best little town and county seat in the USA.”

Grace passed away May 30, 1979 at the age of 86. Bob passed away May 6, 1982 at age 93.

In my last article I mentioned CCC camp and some of my memories from that time in Ekalaka. With special help from Lois Lambert, the Ekalaka Eagle, and Vol. IV of Shifting Scenes (which has a very informative and wonderful article about the years, weather conditions, and people who worked and lived there) I would like to share some great information.

On April 16, 1935 a small delegation from Billings came to inform Forest Ranger Butler and Relief Administrator Dahl that a Civilian Conservation Corps camp would be built five miles south of Ekalaka.

On May 24, 1935 the Eagle reported 25 men from Fort Missoula were building temporary barracks, a kitchen, officers’ quarters, and a road joining the ranger station road.

By early June, 10 buildings had been completed: four barracks, 130 feet long by 20 feet wide; a recreational hall with administrative offices and a camp store; a bathhouse and a drying room with running water; a 42 foot hospital; and a 130 foot building housing CCC officers and forestry quarters.

In the June 1935 Eagle publisher Oscar Dahl reported the arrival of new recruits to the “Windy Valley” CCC camp. There were now 152 boys at the camp, which was quarantined for the measles and mumps.

The camp was a prime spot for disease. After Christmas there was another outbreak of mumps. Twelve recruits were affected. Adding to this, many young men came down with scarlet fever and were quarantined in the Baker hospital. The article reports that Harvey Coons sat with Bob Wear while he struggled with scarlet fever.

Oh yes, I remember scarlet fever—I was in the first grade (1936) when I had it and was quarantined with my brother Robert. Dr. Sandy was our doctor. Another reason I remember this is because of the quarantine time; I got so far behind the rest of the class that I got down on the floor kicking and screaming (also probably crying), refusing to go to school. My mother took me by the hand and we went to see my teacher, Miss Gaer. Evidently this helped as I had no more problems.

Following is some background on the Civilian Conservation Corps: In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt (president at the time) created, among other things, the CCCs—providing reemployment for as many as 50,000 unemployed youths, working in forests, parks, and rangeland.

The Ekalaka camp was in operation during the years of 1935-36 and then was turned over to the Forest Service until 1940. On April 19, 1940, CCC Co. 767 moved back to Ekalaka from Boyes, where they had been stationed for two years. For the next six months work progressed, building storage dams and small reservoirs in the Chalk Buttes/Box Elder grazing district. On October 11, 1940 the camp was empty, with officials, enrollees, and camp equipment headed back to Boyes. I did not know of the Boyes involvement until I read the Shifting Scenes article.

Now I will share some names of Carter County men and others who were a part of the CCCs and helped build Camp Needmore. Many also worked in other areas around the state.

I find the following stories to be very interesting and I have fond memories of most of the men in them. I am sure some of you readers will have the same.

The following is taken from the Shifting Scenes article:

Those working on other projects included Emil Lovec, Harry Setinc, Raymond Peters, Donald Porter, Wakter Enerson, Arthus Quam, Edwin Stieg, Donald Isaakson, Mark Bearrow, George Hanley, Jack Hanley,Alfred Bretzal, Henry Zupanik, Nelson Enerson, Max Elmore, Archie Hess, Edgar Lilletveldt, James Cochran, Walter Kortum JR., Pat Talkington, Donald Brown, Forrest Albert, Angier Sheldon, Perry LaPrath, Earl Whitney, Mayanard Hardesty, William Gergen, Melvin Dague, Craig A. Race, Leslie Dean, Clifford Brown, Boyd Oxford, Clyde Beach, Wayne Gundlach, Marvis Stone, Derry Longabach, and Earl Gundlach.

Among those staying to build the local camp were Ivan Jardee, James Bazil, Red Phalen, Nig Phalen, Eldon “Cub” Welch, Jerry Welch, Carl Quam, George Schuyler, Herman Alfred Sparks, Bob Wear, Donald Lough, Gordan and Lester Peabody, and Harvey Coons.

George Rittal, Fallon

George Rittal was only 16 years old when he enlisted in the CCC in Circle, Montana, on May 21, 1935. It was his first time away from home. When recruits traveled to Missoula it was different from anything he had ever seen. “Kids didn’t travel then…didn’t get out from behind the barn” said George.

George was raised at Circle, but in 1935 there weren’t any jobs or money. On June 7, 1935 his unit moved to Ekalaka where he stayed until October 15, 1935. At first the unit lived in tents, said George, before barracks were built.

George’s job as kitchen supplier took him to Ekalaka once a week for a quarter of beef from a local grocer. The trip took half a day because young men “fooled around” visiting the local skating rink where they found the owner’s “pretty daughter.” Flirting with her was lots better than KP duty, according to George.

George was very homesick. He left the CCC at the end of his six-month enlistment, October 15, 1935.

Ivan Jardee, Ekalaka

Ivan Jardee was 19 when he enlisted in the CCC, a young man from a ranch family just north of Ekalaka. When the call went out for enlistments, Jardee responded. “It was the only thing going on to make money” Ivan served three years in different CCC camps throughout Montana, advancing to the rank of leader.

Among other camp’s machinery was a Cletrac “55” dozer. John Birtic, with the Forest Service, taught Ivan to run it, and he spent much of the winter of 1935-36 plowing snow to keep the roadway open to town. “It was like shoveling snow with a teaspoon,” the man said, trying to move drifts with the small dozer and its nine-foot blade. At times the roadways were abandoned and a path cleared through an open prairie.

Work details were assigned in squads, military style. Ivan was on the powder crew, clearing the right of way, dynamiting stumps. George Schuyler, another local man, worked there too. The men wore khakis or blue jeans. Although there was complaining, Ivan said the men had a good diet. Workers at the camp were from all over, and they had their own doctors in camp.

Not everyone was inclined to work, said Ivan. There were “certain gold brickers who made it harder for other guys.”

Harry Ducello, Helena

Harry Ducello was 18 when he enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps in Miles City in 1935. A farm boy from Olive, he traveled to Ft. Missoula before his unit was transferred to Ekalaka. A member of unit 1999, he worked with the Forest Service south of Ekalaka developing springs and fencing.

Harry was an axeman and sawyer. Some young men were sent to a spice camp in the Long Pines to cut timber for fence posts. After the cutting crew had felled the trees, they were snaked out to the trucks to be picked up. The crew used one horse. Harry was the driver, having worked with horses since he was 14. He also got the job as camp barber.

During the winter of 1935-36, severe cold and snow curtailed work in the timber, and barracks took turns supplying firewood. He was with the CCC outside Ekalaka for one year.

Almost every Saturday, there was a dance in Ekalaka. CCC boys would spend their time at the roller rink until the dance began. At the Armistice Day Dance, Harry met a girl from Baker, Genevieve Seaman. Though recruits weren’t supposed to have cars, one fellow had a Chevy parked “over the hill,” said Harry. When the men got time off on the weekend, Harry went to baker to see Genevieve.

Once Genevieve’s younger sister slammed the door in Harry’s face. That apparently didn’t deter him. They have been married since September 3, 1936, and live in Helena.

Harvey Coons, Ekalaka

Harvey Coons of Ekalaka spent six months at the local CCC camp. Assigned here in October 1935, he arrived just in time for the terrible winter of 1935-36. With nearly 200 recruits, the camp was a prime spot for disease, where mumps and scarlet fever warranted quarantines.

Wear, Lester, and Gordon Peabody were the other local men who served at the CCC camp, later known as Camp Needmore.

Harvey worked at riprapping, thinning the timber in the Custer National Forest, making, treating, and stacking posts. After serving locally, Harvey fought fire near Great Falls, in southern Oregon and northern California, worked as a teamster hauling gravel, and served on a felling crew in Washington before leaving the CCC.

Art Nix, Moorhead, Minnesota

Art joined camp 765 at Boyes in March of 1940, and moved with a group to Ekalaka in April. Many of his memories are musical, as he played with a band in Ekalaka. Mess Sergeant Bing Baker was on the drums, Art on the clarinet, and a local fellow on the saxophone. He wished he could remember the name of the lady who played the piano. The group played for dances at a hall attached to a saloon in Ekalaka.

Art took the camp newspaper into Ekalaka to the local printer and spent most of the day getting it set and printed. The camp had a baseball team that played on the Ekalaka diamond, and recruits enjoyed roller skating and dances in town. Art was one of the truck and ambulance drivers for the camp until he was promoted to assistant educational adviser. He left the camp in September of 1940 and returned to his home in Enderlin, North Dakota.

In 1953 he accepted the position of director of bands at Moorhead State University, Moorhead, Minnesota, where he taught for 30 years.

Art recalled, “wonderful memories of the time in my life during the depression when times were tough but I was given an opportunity to be a part of a national program that was of great benefit to young men and the projects they built are still in use today.”