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Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 42/123

OUR FAMILY WAS SPECIAL TO US

Of the three boys, Curtis was the only one to serve in W.W.II.
Carroll and Edwin had bad ears, and were turned down. When the CCCs
were dissolved in 41/42, he went directly into the Army. He stayed
and retired in the late 60's. Soon after he went in the army he sent
me a soldier suit. It was khaki color, and had a leather like
waistband and strap across the shoulder. The leatherlike material
soon broke and Papa went to the hardware store and bought some real
leather and made a new one. It lasted until I outgrew the outfit. I
was a proud little 4-5 year old wearing that outfit. Either Mama or
Aunt Nita got a sailor jumper for Vera so she wouldn't feel left out,
she too wore it proudly for a couple of years until she outgrew it.
Edwin worked his carpentry skill/trade around Jacksonville, mostly in
the shipyards, building Liberty ships all through the war.

Carroll and Curtis returned to California in the early forties not
long before the CCCs were disbanded at the start of W.W.II, they had
been on a team of escorts on a troop train for a group that came back
East. They didn't know for a couple of days but they were on the same
train going back to California. At the start of the war Carroll
stayed in California and worked for the US Forestry Service during
the war years. He would send us pictures of the California Mountains
and his cabin all covered with several feet of snow. All during the
war years we didn't get out a lot, we all worked, even we kids to
help produce most of our food. This often meant working in the
fields. Late one afternoon we were working in the field in back of
the barn and Mama called us and said look up in the sky, we saw an
unusual object, a blimp. That was the first one we had ever seen
actually flying, it was a Navy Blimp. After that they were seen quite
often, at various times of the day. With the war going on, it was not
uncommon to see all kinds of military airplanes during any one day.
We didn't know what kinds of planes they were, just that there were a
lot of them everyday.

Late Summer of 45, Uncle Carroll left his job with the Forest Service
and came back East and in the Fall he entered U of F. He rode the
train, pulled by a real big steam engine. We met him in Lake City and
I could see the engine up close, was I excited about that. As much as
getting to see Uncle Carre1-. 1. He graduated in Sept. 48 with a
degree in Accounting. All the family went to Gainesville for the
ceremony. On the way back from Gainesville, when we crossed the
Seaboard RR tracks going through Lake City we were very nearly
broadside by a fast passenger train (nonstop in Lake City). There
were no crossing guards or lights, just a limited sight crossing.
That was quite a frightful experience for a 10 year old. While in
college he had an old bicycle, the day after

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