The Rhinelander Daily News - Online news and information for the Rhinelander, Wisconsin region

Vern Hollister - Correspondent

Within a week of Blackwell Job Corps celebrating its 75th anniversary and paying tribute to their 1933 origin as a Conservation Corps Camp (CCC), a small band of people gathered in Dunbar to remember the times they or their fathers shared during president Franklin Delano Roosevelt's program to pull the United States out of the severe Depression.

CC Camps dotted the Wisconsin and Michigan landscapes, 128 in Wisconsin. From Blackwell to Newald, from Three Lakes to Watersmeet to Dunbar, Roosevelt's Tree Army, more commonly known as Wood Ticks, participated in the Conservation Corps, earned $5 a month to keep for spending money and $25 that the government sent home to their families.

George Lundeen from Laona and Cavour, age 93; Don Edlebeck of Goodman, age 88; and Elmer Dins, age 89, of New Holstein were the only three CCC members to attend a two-day reunion in Dunbar last week. Like World War II veterans, there aren't many original CCC Wood Ticks left to tell the story; and, unlike Blackwell, there aren't many structures or remnants remaining to commemorate the events of a bygone era.

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The three octogenarians, along with family members and children of deceased Camp Dunbar workers, met for what may be the last time. Barbara Zaida-Campbell from St. Charles, Illinois, and the reunion's organizer, said that issue has not yet been decided for an event that has been occurring the past 25 or more years.

"My dad, Ben Zaida, was a CCC guy," Zaida-Campbell said. "He died in 2002. His brother Charles Zaida and Walter Zaida were here (Dunbar) and somewhere else in Michigan."

They keep the memory alive of the time spent on five acres of land which served as their home base. Lundeen was in the original camp of 20-25 men. The first Sunday in June of 1933, Lundeen left Marinette and home where there'd be "one less mouth to feed," and to where the government sent most of his wages.

"The camp in Dunbar was being built in 1933. I was there for 13 months," Lundeen said. "That's all you were allowed. After six months, you could re-enlist." Edlebeck and Dins arrived in Dunbar later. "You got to sleep in barracks?!" Lundeen said of their plush dwellings. "We slept in tents."

Edlebeck announced, "I was a gold-bricker." He hadn't traveled far, from Goodman to Dunbar. He stayed for a year and a half, helped to create town roads, worked at the Goodman Park along the Peshtigo River, and planted trees, an average 1,000 per day, the standard for a day's work. "We planted jackpine along the Pike River," Edlebeck said. "They all died."

Dorothy Gardipee attended. She has a place near Goodman on the shores of Lake Hilbert. "A lot of men were from other communities," she said. "My father (Elmer Knoener) was from Sheboygan. In 1933-34, he ran the canteen. He sold pop and supplies available for purchase from $5 wages. When prohibition ended, the canteen also sold beer, bringing the liquid to the thirsty.

Before that, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, a member of the military personnel in charge of the camp loaded the youthful workers onto a truck and drove them to Goodman to watch a movie in the Clubhouse or to attend a dance. Some also took advantage of the beer for sale, a reason for it eventually ending up as part of canteen fare.

Lundeen remembers a staff member going off to purchase some alcohol. "One of the foresters sneaked off to town. We told him to bring us back a pint. We had a merry time in camp that night."

Such are the bonds that drew the men and family members to Dunbar and Richards Supper Club for the get-together. Gardipee said of her father, "He said it was the best time of his life, and that many went on from the camp to become surveyors and successful businessmen." It was where they received a start.

To locate the original camp would be difficult, but for those who have turned toward the Dunbar ballfield and driven by the schoolhouse, they were near. Those who have traveled the roads to the Goodman Park do so over roads Don Edlebeck helped to build. People who have picnicked or spent time at the park can realize that Elmer Dins shingled the roof of the main lodge during a cold January.

CCC workers built 800 state parks, 46,854 bridges and planted 45 million trees. Dins once planted 1,400 in a day. CC men mapped and surveyed areas. They restored historic buildings and built 3,000 lookout towers. They planted fish. They fought forest fires.

For most of the summer of 1933-34, Lundeen said there was no rain, worsening the Depression, adding to the impact of the Dust Bowl across the plains. "We had one big gully-washer," he said. "A track got washed out and we were delayed six hours. It was the last rain of the summer. Almost everyday, we went to fight a fire. 1934 was bad, too. When it got cold weather, it died down; but there was a big fire at Goodman Park. A north wind sent the fire to High Falls."

Frank Parzatka of Armstrong Creek didn't attend Camp Dunbar, but he served in the CCC's for two years, 1934-36. Each six months the 91-year old Parzatka would renew. He spent time at Camp Watersmeet, Camp Pine Run in Three Lakes, Camp Glen Flora near Ladysmith, a camp in Newald, and one in Marenga. Parzatka and the others had no complaints about the food. He said the Camp Watersmeet food was the best. "He used to cook at a logging camp," Parzatka said. "He weighed about 400 pounds and drank a case of beer a day, but he was the best cook."

Like the others, Parzatka smiles and remembers fondly the times young men shared both work and play, like tradesmen and women at Blackwell. Lundeen said they traveled over gravel roads to play a basketball game in Rhinelander. He said they cleaned up streams and Newton Lake near Athelstane and Wausaukee.

"Stream improvement," Lundeen said. "That was a fun job. Then another fire, and 25 of us went back to Newton Lake. We built a bunkhouse. Nobody was there, and we went skinny-dipping in the lake. Now, it's all built up."

In the wilderness, a boy appeared once near a shack. He wore a gunny sack for clothes. They saw no one else, not even a path; but they guessed it was a secret place for brewing a certain illegal elixir.

Dins arrived with photos, of barracks, places, keeping history visible. In 1988, the three men marched in the Dunbar Centennial parade. Near Fond du Lac, a bronze statue of a CCC worker, shirt off, lean, with trousers and work boots and tools was erected in 2002 to commemorate the CCC's part of American history. Dins showed the photos, a historian to keep a time of 75 years ago in people's minds.

As the dinner gathering neared an end, Zaida-Campbell asked questions about the camps. One quiz question was to tell how many Native Americans were camp members. The answer was 85,000. Edlebeck said that Camp Dunbar had a Native American. "We had one, a bugler, to wake us up in the morning. He'd blow it right in the middle of the barracks."

For a gold-bricker, that must have been bad news.

Lundeen said he heard the five-acre site was sold for $1. He looked at photos and pointed out his barracks, number 6. The camps ended when World War II began. The military men in charge turned to a different war than the one on poverty, and many of the same men who were in camps served in the big war, as well. CC Camps ceased to exist, but some, a very few like the one in Blackwell serve as a reminder of the past and of the contributions of working men to the country. Though the Dunbar group has dwindled over the years, a small group of people keep the best time of theirs and their ancestors' lives fresh in their hearts and minds.

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