In Beemer, I interviewed four men, but only three were able to participate in our Saturday evening story-telling time. Two men did CPS, and two did I-W service.
If I get my act together, I’m going to try and type up a summary of each of the story-telling sessions I led this summer. I’m not going to make any promises, because it’s going to be a busy three weeks ahead of us as we try to finish strong and then close down the summer. But I’ll give it the “old college try.”
Jim Troyer, CPS (right)
Jim grew up on a farm in Shickley, NE (yes, in case you’re wondering, Jim is my great-uncle, and grew up on the same farm I would fifty years later). When he started CPS in Hill City, SD, this was the first time he had ever been around a lot of people. He was used to the solitary work of farming. A big shock was the communal latrine, which was like a big outhouse. It was a row of toilets that emptied in the same hole in the ground. Jim said that for the first month or so, he waited until nighttime to use the bathroom.
For the first year of CPS, CPS’ers weren’t paid. After that, they received a whopping $4.65/mo (I believe this was from the church, not the government…) Near the end of the term in Camino, CA, Jim worked for a local man. For four months. Every month, the man promised to pay Jim at the end of the month. It never happened though.
In SD, Jim stacked rocks to help build a dam. As I understood it, after the CPS’ers laid the rock, they scooped gravel around the rocks, and would unload ten train cars (by shovel and wheel barrow) of gravel in a day.
The camp in SD had been a former CCC camp (Civilian Conservation Corp-a New Deal program designed by the Roosevelt Administration to provide employment and jumpstart the economy) that was converted into a CPS camp. The barracks held several long rows of beds, with a large stove in the middle of the building. If you were too near the stove, you were hot all night. If you were too far away, you were cold all night. You had two options: hot or cold. Snow would often blow in the barracks through cracks in the walls. Jim preferred to be hot.
While in SD, Jim’s grandpa died. There were several other Shickley men in the SD camp at the time: Les Troyer (his brother) Wayne Kempf, and Vernon Kennel (his first cousins). When the news of Grandpa Troyer’s death reached the camp, the four men went to the government supervisor to request a leave of absence, but the supervisor did not believe they were cousins. “Do you really expect me to believe this? You all have different last names!” he argued. Eventually they were able to leave, and barely made it home in time for the funeral.
Earnest Kauffman, CPS
Earnest’s first camp was in Colorado Springs, CO. He started in the laundry, and then soon became a night watchman. As a night watchman, he took occasional walks to look around the camp, and then he returned back to the office to play Monopoly.
Although he was short on money during his time in CPS, he never regretted choosing alternative service.
The end of his term was in Mercer County, PA, where he worked for the government testing dairy cattle. He had a book for each dairy, with information on each cow and it’s pedigree. He tested things like production quantity and butterfat content. He visited one farm a day for a month, then started the rotation over. He would stay in the farmer’s homes during the week, and then was able to live near his wife Lois on the weekends.
One weekend, Lois visited one of the farms where Earnest tested cattle. The house was not very clean, and she asked Earnest if there were bed bugs in the bed. Earnest responded, “If there were bed bugs, I’d know it by now.” So later that evening she went to bed before him, and immediately after she crawled into bed, she felt a bite. She turned on the light and flipped up the sheets and saw a bed bug. She killed it, and then saved the carcass until Earnest came to bed, because “I knew Earnest would never believe me unless I saved the dead bug to show him.”
Merle Oswald, I-W (middle)
Merle worked in Denver, Colorado as an ER orderly for most of his I-W time. He and several other Beemer men decided to volunteer, even though there was no war going on (between Korea and Vietnam) and CO’s weren’t being drafted. They all ended up in Denver, and shared an apartment for the first while. Eventually Rollie (see below) got married and moved out, so the Beemer men moved into an old house with six or seven other I-W guys. This was kind of a junky house. One of the guys had hurt himself and was walking through the house on crutches, and one time one of the crutches broke right through the floor. Not long afterwards, the city government condemned the house, and I-W guys had to find a new place.
As an ER orderly, Merle worked about 40 hour weeks. He liked working the night shift the best. Because he worked in the ER on the night shift, he saw all sorts of crazy things. He saw drunks, people who had been wounded in fights, and drunk people who had been wounded in fights. He also learned about racial tension between blacks, Hispanics, and whites. This was the first time he’d been exposed to race issues before.
Merle’s time in I-W was a valuable learning experience for him. I-W men were paid real wages, but they were also responsible for finding their own housing, food, transportation. Merle said this experience taught him how to manage money, do laundry, dishes, general housekeeping, and cook. He learned that this sort of stuff didn’t do itself, and he appreciated his mother in new ways.
Rollie Oswald, I-W (left)
Rollie went down to Denver with the same group of Beemer men. He grew up as a son of a Pastor, and the military was never an option. When he went to Denver, however, he very quickly needed to learn how to talk about his decision to be a Conscientious Objector. His time in I-W was a time where he learned to talk about his faith. Although people in the hospital became familiar with the work of CO’s and their reasons, he still often had to explain why he refused to go to war. He remembers one doctor in particular who was very interested in CO status, and became very supportive of Rollie’s stance.
Rollie worked as a medical orderly and an X-ray technician. In fact, after his I-W time ended, the hospital wanted Rollie to stay around so they could train him into a more skilled position. He said that if he hadn’t wanted to be a farmer so badly, he probably would still live in Denver.
Medical orderlies were expected to transport dead people to the morgue, which was attached to the hospital, but the orderlies needed to use a really small service elevator to access the morgue. One time a new I-W guy was being oriented to the position. Another I-W (we’ll call him Bob) guy convinced some of the other I-W guys to play a joke on this new guy. Bob laid down on the gurney and one of the other I-W guys placed a white sheet over Bob. The other I-W guy explained to the newbie that he needed to take this cadaver to the morgue, the cadaver was a younger man who had died earlier that evening. Bob continued to lay very still, and waited until they were taking the cramped service elevator down to the morgue, and at that point sat up and yelled. Scared the poor guy half to death (Merle also remembered this story).
Rollie also observed first hand the tragedy of racial discrimination. There was a position open in the X-ray department. It was a supervisory position, one that involved a lot of training and supervising of new workers. A black man (Ralph) and a white man were the two front-runners, and the hospital leadership chose the white man. Rollie and the rest of the crew, the ones who knew these men the best, knew that this was a poor decision. Not only was Ralph more knowledgeable, competent, patient, and trustworthy, he also was a far better teacher. This incident really affected Rollie, and he thinks it was a big reason why he and his wife helped support Northside Christian Fellowship over the years, a primarily African-American Mennonite church in Omaha.
Matt Troyer-Miller
If I get my act together, I’m going to try and type up a summary of each of the story-telling sessions I led this summer. I’m not going to make any promises, because it’s going to be a busy three weeks ahead of us as we try to finish strong and then close down the summer. But I’ll give it the “old college try.”
Jim Troyer, CPS (right)
Jim grew up on a farm in Shickley, NE (yes, in case you’re wondering, Jim is my great-uncle, and grew up on the same farm I would fifty years later). When he started CPS in Hill City, SD, this was the first time he had ever been around a lot of people. He was used to the solitary work of farming. A big shock was the communal latrine, which was like a big outhouse. It was a row of toilets that emptied in the same hole in the ground. Jim said that for the first month or so, he waited until nighttime to use the bathroom.
For the first year of CPS, CPS’ers weren’t paid. After that, they received a whopping $4.65/mo (I believe this was from the church, not the government…) Near the end of the term in Camino, CA, Jim worked for a local man. For four months. Every month, the man promised to pay Jim at the end of the month. It never happened though.
In SD, Jim stacked rocks to help build a dam. As I understood it, after the CPS’ers laid the rock, they scooped gravel around the rocks, and would unload ten train cars (by shovel and wheel barrow) of gravel in a day.
The camp in SD had been a former CCC camp (Civilian Conservation Corp-a New Deal program designed by the Roosevelt Administration to provide employment and jumpstart the economy) that was converted into a CPS camp. The barracks held several long rows of beds, with a large stove in the middle of the building. If you were too near the stove, you were hot all night. If you were too far away, you were cold all night. You had two options: hot or cold. Snow would often blow in the barracks through cracks in the walls. Jim preferred to be hot.
While in SD, Jim’s grandpa died. There were several other Shickley men in the SD camp at the time: Les Troyer (his brother) Wayne Kempf, and Vernon Kennel (his first cousins). When the news of Grandpa Troyer’s death reached the camp, the four men went to the government supervisor to request a leave of absence, but the supervisor did not believe they were cousins. “Do you really expect me to believe this? You all have different last names!” he argued. Eventually they were able to leave, and barely made it home in time for the funeral.
Earnest Kauffman, CPS
Earnest’s first camp was in Colorado Springs, CO. He started in the laundry, and then soon became a night watchman. As a night watchman, he took occasional walks to look around the camp, and then he returned back to the office to play Monopoly.
Although he was short on money during his time in CPS, he never regretted choosing alternative service.
The end of his term was in Mercer County, PA, where he worked for the government testing dairy cattle. He had a book for each dairy, with information on each cow and it’s pedigree. He tested things like production quantity and butterfat content. He visited one farm a day for a month, then started the rotation over. He would stay in the farmer’s homes during the week, and then was able to live near his wife Lois on the weekends.
One weekend, Lois visited one of the farms where Earnest tested cattle. The house was not very clean, and she asked Earnest if there were bed bugs in the bed. Earnest responded, “If there were bed bugs, I’d know it by now.” So later that evening she went to bed before him, and immediately after she crawled into bed, she felt a bite. She turned on the light and flipped up the sheets and saw a bed bug. She killed it, and then saved the carcass until Earnest came to bed, because “I knew Earnest would never believe me unless I saved the dead bug to show him.”
Merle Oswald, I-W (middle)
Merle worked in Denver, Colorado as an ER orderly for most of his I-W time. He and several other Beemer men decided to volunteer, even though there was no war going on (between Korea and Vietnam) and CO’s weren’t being drafted. They all ended up in Denver, and shared an apartment for the first while. Eventually Rollie (see below) got married and moved out, so the Beemer men moved into an old house with six or seven other I-W guys. This was kind of a junky house. One of the guys had hurt himself and was walking through the house on crutches, and one time one of the crutches broke right through the floor. Not long afterwards, the city government condemned the house, and I-W guys had to find a new place.
As an ER orderly, Merle worked about 40 hour weeks. He liked working the night shift the best. Because he worked in the ER on the night shift, he saw all sorts of crazy things. He saw drunks, people who had been wounded in fights, and drunk people who had been wounded in fights. He also learned about racial tension between blacks, Hispanics, and whites. This was the first time he’d been exposed to race issues before.
Merle’s time in I-W was a valuable learning experience for him. I-W men were paid real wages, but they were also responsible for finding their own housing, food, transportation. Merle said this experience taught him how to manage money, do laundry, dishes, general housekeeping, and cook. He learned that this sort of stuff didn’t do itself, and he appreciated his mother in new ways.
Rollie Oswald, I-W (left)
Rollie went down to Denver with the same group of Beemer men. He grew up as a son of a Pastor, and the military was never an option. When he went to Denver, however, he very quickly needed to learn how to talk about his decision to be a Conscientious Objector. His time in I-W was a time where he learned to talk about his faith. Although people in the hospital became familiar with the work of CO’s and their reasons, he still often had to explain why he refused to go to war. He remembers one doctor in particular who was very interested in CO status, and became very supportive of Rollie’s stance.
Rollie worked as a medical orderly and an X-ray technician. In fact, after his I-W time ended, the hospital wanted Rollie to stay around so they could train him into a more skilled position. He said that if he hadn’t wanted to be a farmer so badly, he probably would still live in Denver.
Medical orderlies were expected to transport dead people to the morgue, which was attached to the hospital, but the orderlies needed to use a really small service elevator to access the morgue. One time a new I-W guy was being oriented to the position. Another I-W (we’ll call him Bob) guy convinced some of the other I-W guys to play a joke on this new guy. Bob laid down on the gurney and one of the other I-W guys placed a white sheet over Bob. The other I-W guy explained to the newbie that he needed to take this cadaver to the morgue, the cadaver was a younger man who had died earlier that evening. Bob continued to lay very still, and waited until they were taking the cramped service elevator down to the morgue, and at that point sat up and yelled. Scared the poor guy half to death (Merle also remembered this story).
Rollie also observed first hand the tragedy of racial discrimination. There was a position open in the X-ray department. It was a supervisory position, one that involved a lot of training and supervising of new workers. A black man (Ralph) and a white man were the two front-runners, and the hospital leadership chose the white man. Rollie and the rest of the crew, the ones who knew these men the best, knew that this was a poor decision. Not only was Ralph more knowledgeable, competent, patient, and trustworthy, he also was a far better teacher. This incident really affected Rollie, and he thinks it was a big reason why he and his wife helped support Northside Christian Fellowship over the years, a primarily African-American Mennonite church in Omaha.
Matt Troyer-Miller
No comments:
Post a Comment