Mid-Columbians recall Depression-era program

By Pratik Joshi, Herald staff writer

August Nerpel may be reliving history.

He grew up during the Depression, served in the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late '30s and later saw the resurgence of the economy. And today he sees the same once-mighty economy beset by unemployment, declining housing prices and a financial crisis that doesn't seem to be tapering off.

But Nerpel, 90, also sees hope in President-elect Barack Obama, the way he did more than 70 years ago when President Franklin D. Roosevelt came up with the New Deal to help revitalize America.

"It's a pretty rough deal, but (Obama's) on the ball," said the West Richland resident, referring to Obama's plan for infrastructure construction, or the new New Deal to build highways, bridges and energy-efficient transport solutions.

The CCC program should have never stopped, said Lawrence Hetrick, 91, of Richland, who served in the program in the mid-'30s. It helped him learn multiple skills that came in handy later in life, said the former Hanford worker.

The Congress-authorized program employed millions of young men from 1933 to 1942 to build roads, parks and conserve forests.

A similar effort is needed to jump-start the economy, and Obama is the man for the job, said Mildred Walton, 81, president of the local chapter of the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni.

Her late husband John helped fight forest fires and cut dead trees in Modoc County in California as a CCC volunteer in 1935, said Walton, who also worked on Obama's presidential campaign.

"People have a sense of hope because of Obama," she said. He will be able to cope with whatever happens, she believes.

Hetrick and his wife Eunice, who are also part of the alumni group, said they don't think the transformation will be easy. "It's worse than what it was during the Depression," she said. Educated people don't have jobs, and schools don't teach anything useful any more, the couple said.

Credit cards have given people a false sense of prosperity, said Eunice Hetrick, 87. "We never had a desire to accumulate."

Richland resident John Tolrud, soon to be 88, said his generation learned to live frugally. He spent 18 months in the CCC in Minnesota helping plant trees and driving trucks.

He learned to drive a truck and to weld, and most importantly, learned the value of hard work and how to make a living, said Tolrud who came to the Tri-Cities in 1947 and got a job at the Richland Fire Department.

At the CCC camps, everybody earned $30 a month working from about 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. But the Army, which managed the camps, made sure $25 was sent home to the workers' families, said Jack Houston, 90, a former Richland City Council member and CCC alumnus. That helped local economies and saved small businesses, said Houston, who helped build a forest road in Washington in 1936-37.

Nerpel planted trees in Grand Coulee in 1937 during his first six-month stint that was abruptly cut short by rheumatic fever. He re-enlisted in the program in 1938 and spent almost two years working on projects in several states, including North Dakota and Arizona. He said he worked as a carpenter, helped pour concrete to make slabs and ran a rig to load the slabs on a truck. He also learned to weld and later became a welder at Hanford after coming to the Tri-Cities in 1953.

The CCC was about finding solutions and working together as a team, Nerpel and Tolrud said. It was about hands-on education, be it stone quarrying, brick-laying, shingle-making, window framing or even handling dynamite, said Hetrick, who vividly remembers learning a variety of skills in the Corps.

"I went to a camp that taught me how to do things," Hetrick said.

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Sunday, Jan. 04, 2009

Mid-Columbians recall Depression-era program

By Pratik Joshi, Herald staff writer