My mother was a scapbook maker par excellence. After she died in 2010, we gathered together more than 20 of them with various parts of our family history. What a treasure!
Reviewing one of these scrapbooks recently, I noticed this picture she had saved of Dad’s brother, Edgar Borreson.
My guess is that the photo dates from Edgar’s service in the Civilian Conservation Corps in the mid-1930s. Perhaps it was taken at lunch time in the woods while he was working at Camp Long Lake in the Nicolet Forest of northern Wisconsin. (See more in an older post here by searching “CCC.”)
When the CCC “boys” arrived at a new camp, they would often stay in tents until more permanent barracks were constructed. According to Jerry Apps (The Civilian Conservation Corps in Wisconsin), an early kind of pre-fab construction simplified the building process as time went on.
The Corps worked through the winter, of course, and sometimes they were working in snow that was hip deep. When the weather became too cold (minus 20 degrees), they stayed in for the day or until the afternoon warmed up. If they missed a whole day, then they had to work for half of Saturday.
The typical pay for a CCC worker was $30 a month, of which $25 went to his family back home. Consequently, the program benefited many families struggling to survive the Depression. The CCC men themselves often gained work experience or skills that served them well after their Corps days.
The program began in 1933, just a month into FDR’s presidency, and ended in 1942, with the USA’s engagement in WW II. More 90,000 men from Wisconsin served some time in the CCC.
Borreson Cousins 