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This is an interview with Charles Maske of Dover, Delaware. The interview was conducted on November 23 and 24, 1996 at Mr. Maske's home. The interviewer is Addie C. Beaman representing the Delaware Agricultural Museum for the Delaware Department of Agriculture's Century Farm Oral History Project. AB: Now Mr. Maske you were born eh…When were you born? CM: June 11, 1909. AB: Was that in Delaware? CM: Yes in Delaware. AB: What part of Delaware was that? CM: Well I was born in the northern part up around Talleyville. AB: And you came to Delaware, came down to Hartly, Templeville when you were age...? CM: Five. AB: And that's when you moved to that farm? CM: Yeah. AB: Near Hartly and Templeville. You previously told me that the farm was eighty-two acres and that you were the youngest of four sons? CM: Yeah. AB: (Dog barking) I think I'm going to have to turn Kent out because I want you to start telling me what kind of crops you grew there. Okasy with that. He wanted to go home. Tell me what it was like on the farm down there. What kind of crops did you all grow? CM: Well it was more like a general farm, not a specialized farm. We had cows and some horses. And much of the produce that we grew went to feed the livestock. And eh…Oh I can't think now. I can't say. AB: Did you grow … Say you grew corn and wheat? CM: Yes wheat. AB: And probably sowed rye? CM: Yeah. AB: How many cows do you think you had? AB: Tell me what you did about the milk and milking. Did you milk? CM: Oh yes. I'll interject here a little story. My aunt came down to see me one day. And on the way down she brought her little granddaughter with her. And on the way down the granddaughter wanted to know about the cows and things and her Mother told her that she'd be able to see Uncle Charles milk the cows. So all day long she was after me about milking the cows. I said, "Well I don't milk the cows until four o'clock." So finally four o'clock came so she wanted …She was just all so excited because I was going to milk the cows now. So I got the cows in and I started milking and I got a bucket full of milk and went over to the dairy and poured the milk into the hundred pound milk can. We had to strain it good. And my little cousin said to me, "What do you do with all this milk?" I said, "Well we sell it." I said, "That's how on the farm we get money by selling the milk." She said, "Gee my Daddy has to work for his money." AB: Milking cows is really work. CM: I was just milking cows and selling the milk. I wasn't working. AB: Who picked up those big cans of milk at the end of the lane at the farm? CM: We had a paid milk driver, milk carrier. We would milk the cows and put the cans out at the end of the lane. We'd milk them and then cool the milk and then put the cans out at the end of the lane and this milk truck would come along and pick them up and take them to Greensboro. AB: Was there a milk company over there? CM: Yes, the Pet Milk Company. AB: Oh Pet Milk uh huh. Well didn't you have to have the milk eh…What do you call it CM: Pasteurized? AB: Yeah. You didn't have to do that? CM: Not for this no because it went into condensed milk. And it was cooked then and sterilized. AB: Tell me about school. Where did you go to school when you lived
on the farm? AB: How many grades were there? AB: How many grades were in that building? CM: Seven grades. CM: Yes. I'm sure she took some shortcuts once in awhile. She had the seventh graders hear the first graders reading and things like that to relieve her. And maybe seventh graders would correct the papers of the second, third, fourth grades. AB: Well how was that building heated? CM: Had a great big coal stove in it. Pot bellied coal stove. AB: Did you boys have to keep the heater going? CM: You believe we did. AB: And if you didn't what happened? CM: Well I don't know we really kept it going. AB: Did you ever get a switching in school? CM: No I never did. My Mother always told me if you do get a switching in school you'll get one twice as hard when you get home. So I avoided switchings. AB: Well let's see that was 19... when you started to school there, about 1917. CM: I was six years old and I was born in 1909 and six would be 1915 when I started school. AB: So when you finished those seven grades what did you do then about an education? CM: Well then I had to walk to Marydel and catch a bus and ride fifteen miles to Caesar Rodney Highschool on a pine plank and then the same fifteen miles back. And then I had to walk three to catch the bus and three miles when I got off the bus when I got back home. AB: Well that plank, was that the seats? CM: Yeah that was the seat, just a plain pine plank. AB: Where did you get that bus? CM: A man lived in Marydel by the name of Lowell Hummer and he heard that they wanted eh, the schoolboard wanted to start a bus to Marydel to Dover. And so he contracted to build the bus and to drive the bus. AB: He drove it? CM: He drove it too. And he built and did a fair job on it I will say. It wasn't such a bad looking bus. AB: But it was covered? It was not heated was it? It was just covered so it wouldn't rain in it? CM: Well he could fix it so he could heat it. AB: Oh. CM: And in real cold weather he'd have the exhaust pipes from the engine would run right through the bus and keep the bus warm. AB: When you got home from school in the afternoon did you have to do your homework then or go milk cows or did you sit around at night, around the fire and do your homework with your brothers? You said you didn't have a sister. CM: Well by that time my brothers were all gone and I was just there by myself and my parents. AB: You were the baby? CM: Yeah. AB: So did you graduate? CM: In 1927 I graduated from Caesar Rodney Highschool. AB: Is that school still standing? CM: What? AB: That Caesar Rodney building. Is the building still standing? CM: I don't think so. I think it was torn down and another building put up there. AB: Uh huh. Well after graduation from highschool and then the boys had left home how did your Father manage the farm? Did they still live in the neighborhood and come and help with the harvest? CM: My brothers didn't live in the neighborhood, no. We had a hired man for awhile. At least one year we had a hired man I know. AB: Uh huh. Did he help there on the farm? CM: Yes. AB: Well when you graduated what year was that? CM: 1927. AB: Were we going into the Depression at that time? CM: Well we didn't know it if we were. AB: What do you mean you didn't know it? On the farm and you didn't know it? CM: Yeah. AB: Because you didn't lack for anything you didn't realize? CM: No. AB: Well what was it like during the Depression? CM: Well the Depression was the worst of times in some ways and the best of times. I say the worst of times because nobody had any money. And we had to do with the best we could. But on the other hand it was the best of times because we'd trade things with our neighbors. And we'd invite the neighbors over to our place to have dinner with us and they'd invite us to have dinner with them sometimes. And in that way it was the best of times. We more closer with our neighbors than we had ever been. AB: I think that was good. CM: Yes it was good. AB: You didn't have to go a long distance for entertainment. It was all in the neighborhood? CM: Yes. AB: Like games you played with the kids next door. CM: Yes. AB: Well when you decided to leave home and go out to make your own living what was the first job? CM: I worked at the Gulf Refinery. AB: How did you get in up there? CM: Well my uncle was executive engineer of the big Gulf refinery plant which they were just constructing at the time. AB: Where? CM: Up at Marcus Hook. And I'll never forget it the day I went in to get a job there was this crowd of men around the employment office. Some had been sitting there for days waiting for a job to open that they might get. And I just walked right in and got a job because my uncle was executive engineer of the whole works. AB: That was wonderful. I've heard that sometimes it's who you know. CM: It's who you know as much as what you know. AB: What did you actually do there? CM: I was covering pipe. Any pipe with water in it had to be covered. AB: Uh huh. To keep it. from freezing? CM: Yeah. AB: Why did you leave there? CM: Well because I was getting so much oil, I guess in my food when I would eat lunch at lunchtime. My hands would be oily I guess when I handled my sandwiches and I was getting so much oil that I was developing stomach trouble. And so I quit and went home and for a year, lived off of graham crackers, AB: At home for your stomach? CM: Yeah. And finally got the ulcer cured up. AB: Oh I imagine you breathe fumes all the time too. CM: Oh, yes. AB: And then you heard that they needed someone to build Bombay Hook? CM: Oh no that was quite a lot of years later. AB: That was your next job, wasn't it, after the refinery? CM: Well to say real job, yes. That didn't come until the CCC Camps came quite a lot of years later. AB: Tell me about that. CM: And they had the CCC Camp at Lewes, Delaware. I mean at Leipsic. And it was filled with black boys and I had worked in the CCC Camp before that with white boys. And I just didn't know how I was going to handle these black boys. It was very much of a concern with me how I was going to handle them. And it was just a concern wasted because there was no problem. You treat the black ones the same as you do the white ones and they treat you the same. And I had no trouble at all with the black boys. In fact I rather enjoyed working with the black boys. AB: What did they have you do? CM: Well our first job was a big job. They wanted to have the telephone out at the Refuge Headquarters and we dug a trench all the way from the Leipsic Road all the back to the Bombay Hook Refuge which was oh a mile a-half at least. We dug this trench about, oh a good two, foot deep and that was the first job. AB: Was that started for the purpose of eradicating mosquitoes? CM: No, it had nothing to do with mosquitoes. AB: I thought they did some mosquito control work down there. CM: Well I did, but that was earlier. AB: Let's start back there at the beginning. CM: Huh? AB: Let's start back there. When you went in there I want you to tell me something that I'm interested in that is the buildings and the food and the discipline and the work hours. And who started it, the Army? Was it federal or state? CM: Well I can't say exactly except that they set up a Mosquito Control Commission of which Wilbur Corklan of Rehoboth was head of that. And it was through him that I got into the eradicating mosquito control. AB: How many boys, how many barracks was there? CM: There would be five barracks with two hundred men in each barrack I believe. And we had seven trucks. That was the standard camp. That was the way all the CCC Camps were set up. AB: And you, what were you, you were a foreman CM: I started out just an an enrollee, clear down to the very bottom. And eh I soon had some of my work recognized. Before they took us down to Lewes they took a group of us to the Corps of Engineer Base in New Castle. There they asked for volunteers, anybody that wanted to learn something about mapping, so I volunteered for mapping. And I enjoyed that work. It was something I liked to do and when I went down to the Camp I did the mapping for the Camp. And I had a crew of two men who did the taping. They would tape all the ditches the length of them and then I would make a drawing of them and put the length of each ditch in. And then in the morning when the foreman was ready to go out there and taken his crew out there he would be given a copy of my sketch which would show him how many flooded ditches was in that parcel of land. And we liked that very much and it got back to Mr. Corklan that I had originated that idea and was doing it. And he liked it so much he called me in and interviewed me and set it up in the other Camps to be done the same way. And then that was early in the spring and eh.... We signed up for six months at a time in the CCC Camp. And my time was getting pretty close to being up and the superintendent came to me one day and said, "Are you going to sign over again?" I said, "No I'm planning on going back to the farm." He said "Well I can tell you this, if you will sign over you will be made a foreman before three months are up". And I said, "Well that makes a difference. I'll give it some consideration," So a day or two later I told them I would sign over. So I signed over and within three months I was made a foreman for which I got one hundred dollars a month. And I got along better on that one hundred dollars a month at that time than I think that I've ever gotten along on my salary since. AB: Did they furnish uniforms? CM: Furnish what? AB: Uniforms or clothing and food? CM: Oh yes. Now after I became a foreman I had to pay for the food. I had to pay fifteen dollars a month for my food and board. AB: And where did these uniforms come from? CM: This was back in the very early days of the CCC and they were given the surplus clothing left over from the 1st World War. Soldiers uniforms were passed out. Everybody got a soldier uniform from the 1st World War. And those uniforms were very interesting, the things that the boys had written on them, dates and so forth and where they had been. AB: And where was this, Bombay Hook or....? AB: But these boys were they in a camp where the CCC Camp was, that was Bombay Hook? CM: Yes. AB: And you worked at Bombay Hook all that time. Well I want to ask you a question right here. I want to know did the Army Corps of Engineer furnish the uniforms, the food, the entertainment, medical, all that? CM: Well that was just the Army. They didn't break it down into which Army. It was just the Army furnished it. AB: With that many boys what did they do for entertainment? CM: Well they would run buses into Dover to the movies, or Smyrna. And then we would have dances once in awhile. AB: At the Camp? CM: At the Camp yeah. We got up a pretty good orchestra from the Camp, the boys themselves. Some played guitars and some played banjos and so forth. And they got together and made their own little band. And they would play for occasions. AB: Tell me about that tower you built down there. CM: Well they wanted this tower, hundred foot high, for where they could go out and look over the range and look for poachers. That was the main purpose of the tower. And eh the tower was ordered. It came all in pieces and those had to be put together. It's wooden pieces and this had to be put together and bolted together. I didn't have to cut the timbers or have to lengthen the timbers or anything like that. It was all cut to fit and all I had to do was put them together. And by this time we had all black boys in the Camp. And the other foreman and the superintendent that putting up the tower is going to be your job. Well they laughed at me and said, "Well you know you're not going to get any black boys up on that hundred foot .high tower. Do you think you can build a hundred foot high tower by yourself?" And they had a great joke over that.. Well the time came. I got the footings all laid for the tower and so forth and the time came for to put it up and one day here came this big load of lumber into the Camp and that was the tower. The pieces had already been cut and supposedly matched to fit. But when I got started putting it up I found that some of them didn't fit. So I had considerable trouble for awhile but we found a way around that. AB: And did you ask for volunteers to go up that tower? CM: When I got ready to start the tower I had this crew of black boys and How many now? Twenty black boys. The foreman all had a great joke on me. They said, "Can you put up a hundred foot tower by yourself? You know you're not going to get them black boys up that tower." Well the time came for to start putting up the tower. I took my crew out there and I lined them up and I give them a talking to and told them what I was going to do. And I said, "I'm going to need six fellows to go to the top of the tower with me." I said, "I'm not going to tell one of you fellows to go up that tower. And it's no use for you to ask me to let you go up the tower." I said, "The only way you can get up is you got to volunteer." I said, "Do I have six boys to volunteer to go up to the top of the tower with me?" And right away six of those black boys stepped out and said, "I'll go up to the top of the tower with you Mr. Maske." And they did and I can tell you now nobody want any better than those boys were. They were just remarkable, unbelievable. They didn't do a lot of cutting up or anything like that. They went to their work seriously and they were just marvelous help. AB: Okay. Well Mr. Maske I understand you met Jack Lewis down there. Can you tell me about meeting him at the CCC Camp? CM: That was in Lewes before I went to Bombay Hook. AB: Okay. CM: He came over from Jersey. Mr. Corklan wanted somebody to do some
painting of boys as they worked, doing mosquito control work. And somehow,
I don't know how he got in touch with Jack Lewis and Mr Corklan brought
him over to the Camp. And Jack and I became acquainted right, away.
And I really enjoyed my acquaintance with AB: Did you watch him paint? CM : Oh yes many times. AB: He was painting what? CM: The boys at work. AB: The actual boys and the scenery? CM: Yeah. AB: Well. you paint. Did Jack Lewis teach you to paint? CM: No. AD: When did you learn to paint? CM: Well I can remember painting and ??? as far back as I can remember anything. I just sort of liked to fool with it. And I guess I learned some things from Jack. AB: He didn't live in the CCC Camp? CM: Yeah he did. AB: And you did too so you saw quite a bit of eachother? CM: Oh yes. That's where we got acquainted. We've been good friends ever since. AB: Well did you go out into that hot sun and the mosquitoes down there to work? CM: I sure did. I sure did. AB: You didn't get sunburned? CM: No, I didn't. Some of the other boys got sunburned but I was real careful not to expose myself to the sun until I could get hardened up to it. And I never had bad sunburn, although the boys worked they were bare from the waist up. AB: What happened if you let them get burned? CM: What happened what? AB: If you allowed the boys to get sunburned? CM: Well that would be a mark against us foreman. And later on I came
up to Leipsic and we had black boys. In the spring of the year the first
warm day they started pulling their shirts off and I was very concerned.
I didn't know if black boys would sunburn or not and I know I didn't
want any of them to get sunburned. I'd get in trouble over that. So
I called my foreman over and asked him. I said, "Lawrence will
these boys sunburn?" I said, "They're taking their shirts
off and I'm a. little worried about them because the white boys that
I've been used to working with would get sunburned and that would be
a mark against me for them to get sunburned?" He said, "No
sir Mr. Maske they won't sunburn. No sir." He said, "Now some
of them lighter ones out there they might turn a little darker, but
they won't sunburn. Don't worry about that." His name was Lawrence
Hackett from Newark, Delaware and I've tried and tried to get in…to
connect up with him since then. And I've run up to Newark and found
Hackett families but was never able to catch up with Lawrence Hackett
after that. But he was a black boy and he was a marvelous fellow. Well
I should explain maybe that we had crews. There were five foreman in
the CCC Camp and each foreman had a crew of twenty men. And eh …My
train of thought AB: You were saying each foreman had twenty boys. Did you have twenty? CM: Oh yes. Sometimes I might have thirty. CM: Wondered why what? AB: How was that land acquired to create Bombay Hook? CM: Indeed it was. Wilbert Raughley out there he owned quite a bit of land and he heard somehow that the government was looking for a place out there to buy up some marshland for a bird sanctuary. So he got busy and went out and bought some land up himself and then he sold it to the government. And people out there talked about him getting rich off of that selling land to the government. I don't know how rich he got but he sell it and that became the Bombay Hook Refuge. AB: Well it's a wonderful place. Well did you still have the farm now when you work concluded at Bombay Hook? Did you go back to the farm? CM: Yes I did. AB: Did you tend the land? CM: Yes I did. Yes indeed. My first job as a foreman paid me a hundred dollars a month. AB: You made better than that on the farm. CM: Not those days I didn't. AB: With the milk? CM: No. Well I got along faster on that hundred dollars a month than I think I've ever been able to get along with since. AB: Well after you sold the farm and moved to Dover you remained with the Federal Agricultural Government type job. CM: Yes. AB: What was that? CM: Well that was with the ASCS Office. That's called Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service. They called it ASCS. And I was the field man for the office. The ASCS obtained money to assist farmers to do a better job of farming. Now not to grow cash crops but to do things like plant permanent pastures, which was soil improvement practices. If they used lime it would help to pay for the lime because that's a soil improvement practice. And I was field man for that office. In my job for them to be paid for these things I had to go out and take a look to see if it was used as intended. And in practically all occasions it was. I had very little problem there. AB: The farmers were paid not to use their land, to let it lay fallow? CM: Well that's what it amounted to, yes. And some of it, some of the farmers wouldn't participate in it. Nobody had to participate in it and some of them wouldn't, especially the Amish people. They didn't believe in it and they wouldn't. A lot of the Amish people would not participate. AB: They thought it was getting something for nothing? CM: Yes. At least I think that's what was considered. AB: What was that called, Soil Bank? CM: No. There was a Soil Bank but that was different. AB: Did you all work with the Soil Bank? CM: Yes. When you signed up for the Soil Bank you signed up for maybe like five years. And they were required to plant certain kind of crops and plow under some crops and so forth and my job was to go out to farms once in awhile and check on them to see if they were doing what they had agreed to do. And I never had any serious trouble there. Practically everybody did as they had agreed to do. AB: Did you join the Grange at that time because you were in agriculture? CM: Well not because I was in agriculture, but yes I did join the Grange somewheres back along that time. But I was always in agriculture. AB: Did you still live on… You didn't live on the farm after you sold it? CM: Not after I sold it no. AB: Well how many years did you work with the Agriculture Department? I believe you worked there until 1972 we figured out. CM: Well just guessing I would say somewheres around eight to ten years. AB: You sold the farm in 1965 and then you went with the Agriculture Department in 1970, no 19.... eh. You worked twenty years so it must have been around 1985. You've been retired how long? CM: Oh well retirement tip to now it would be twenty, thirty years. AB: You've enjoyed this retirement haven't you? CM: Oh indeed. AB: I want you to tell me about this dog. CM: What? AB: This dog you have, the smart dog. CM: Well he's smart. AB: How did you get him? CM: I went to the dog pound and got him, to the SPCA dog pound. AB: With the Deans? CM: Yes. AB: Tell me about that. CM: Well ??? said to me one afternoon, "We're going out to the SPCA and pick out a puppy. Do you want to go?" I said, "Sure." So I went out and we looked over all the puppies and we looked over all the puppies that they had there and I said, "Well I don't see anything here I'd want to take home." And they said, "Well we don't either" so we started to go out and leave and just as we got out the door, the front door, here was a woman coming across the yard with eh carrying a bushel basket. And I said, "Let's wait and see what this woman's got in her bushel basket." So we waited and when she got up to us we asked to see if she had puppies and she said she did. And we asked if we could see them and she put the basket down on the ground and I picked up… They were all Labrador puppies and I picked out the runt of the bunch and looked him over and I liked him so much I recommended him to my neighbor. So they took him. Anything else? AB: How did you teach him all those tricks? CM: Well that's a whole another story how I taught him. I can't really…You need a movie camera so I can demonstrate. AB: There's one other thing I'd like you to do. Do you feel like reciting that poem that you do so well, My Father's Junkbox? CM: My Father's Junkbox. AB: Yes. CM: My Father often used to say my boy never throw a thing away. Written by Edgar Guest. AB: I like that theme. CM: It has a lot of meaning. AB: Mr. Maske is there anything in your life that you would change if you had to go over? CM: Well looking back it seems that there's things I might change. But on the other hand I wouldn't want to change them if the times were the same. If we were in the midst of a deep Depression as we were in that time I can't think of anything really that I would want to change. AB: In other works you enjoyed the Depression it sounds like? CM: Yes I did, There were good things came out of the Depression. People were closer together. Out on the farm we neighbors would get together and have dinner together once in awhile. We never did that before. And just a lot of things about the Depression years that were good. AB: On the farm people had plenty of food? CM: Yes. And we had plenty of city relatives and believe me we had plenty of company. They would come down to get some of that good fried chicken. AB: Did you all raise your own chickens? CM: Oh yes. We raised everything. AB: Pigs? CM: Yes. AB: Sheep? CM: No I didn't have any sheep, never got into sheep. AB: Selling that milk saved you from … Made money for you during the Depression and you were able to manage better? CM: Oh yes. I'll tell you a story about that. My Aunt came down one day and brought her Granddaughter with her. And she told the Granddaughter coming down she said, "Now you'll be able to see Uncle Charles milk the cows". Well as soon as she got to the farm she wanted to know of me when I was going to milk the cows. I said, "Well I don't do that until four o'clock". Well all day she was pestering me how long until four o'clock. So finally four o'clock came and I said, "Well I'm ready to go and milk now". So I went out to the milk house and got the can and the buckets and so forth and sterilized them. And then got the cows in and started milking the cows. Well she was so excited over that milk. So when I took the first bucket in to pour it into the strainer and the can she said to me, "What do you do with all this milk?" I said, "Well on the farm we sell it, that's how we get money". She said, "Hum, my Daddy has to work for his money". AB: Children are a lot of fun. CM: I think a lot of the city people felt that way too. AB: Yeah. |
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