L. Lyman: They were operating trucks, and they didn't have much in the way of bulldozers then, but there was more maintenance work, overhauling trucks and things like that and training some of the boys. Some of the boys are better off than I am now. Some of them married girls here. One fellow's got two of three caterpillars, bulldozers, and does that kind of work. He makes pretty good money.
 
 Stewart: Who is this that you are referring to?

L. Lyman: Willie Certonio.
  

Willie Certonio and Georgan Hurst, circa 1935.   Certonio was a CCC boy who stayed in Blanding and started the Certonio Construction Company .  (G. Burtenshaw photo)

L. Lyman: Not a mechanist, a mechanic.

Stewart: You were in charge of instruction to the boys.

L. Lyman: Yes, I was training the truck drivers and teaching them the mechanics too.

Stewart: Mr. Hurst said that on Saturdays they would hold classes when they didn't have to work. Was that the same situation with this camp?

L. Lyman: Not while I was there. I don't remember having classes on Saturdays. The boys in our camp, some were from Ohio. I think the first group was from Ohio, and then some of them came from Brooklyn, around the New York area. The first thing we did was teach them to drive. They could drive, but not over our kind of roads. So I selected truck drivers. I'd try them out and select the ones that I thought were the most likely to be good drivers and train them as much as I could. Then we'd keep some of them in camp during the day and work on other equipment. They were learning to repair equipment that way. But the thing that bothered me about the whole thing was the politics mixed up in it. That was during Roosevelt's administration, and I was a Republican, and you almost had to be a Democrat to hold down a job there. They made it kind of rough on some of us.

Stewart: Did you have to declare what you were to get a job, whether you were a Democrat of a Republican?

L. Lyman: No. I can't remember, now, just that they did to make it disagreeable for us, but they knew. In a little town, you know people's politics. Ironically, nearly all the foremen in Blanding were Republicans. (However, the CCC officials were democrats.) I didn't like the setup. I finally quit.

Stewart: How many boys were at the camp?

L. Lyman: It was supposed to be a 200-man camp, but the way I remember it, they weren't always filled up--completely staffed, you know.

Stewart: Did they often take enrollees from Blanding and put them in that camp, or did they always take enrollees and ship them elsewhere?

L. Lyman: They were nearly all shipped in. In fact, I don't remember any boys from here. There were boys from here in C.C.C. camps, but they were around in some other place.
 
 

Lynn Lyman and Hazel in the early years of their marriage.  Theirs was one of the first cars in Blanding.  ( SJHC photo)

Stewart: There's one more point I'm curious about. Shortly after the C.C.C. was passed by Congress and initiated as a program, they passed an amendment allowing Indians to join up as enrollees. Can you recall any Indians that were in the project?

L. Lyman: Not here.

Stewart: I read about this amendment, but I never ever heard of an Indian being in it.

L. Lyman: I'm sure there were Indians in some of the camps. But, you see, most of these fellows came from back east.

Stewart: So possibly there were, but they were maybe from Oklahoma or something and shipped into other stations?

L. Lyman: I don't believe there were any Indians here in this camp. I don't remember any Spanish fellows in the camp. There were Italian and people like you'd pick up in a big city. I don't remember of any Spanish people or Indians.

Stewart: How long did the camp stay here, this one in the northwest corner of Blanding?

L. Lyman: I can't remember. It was probably four or five years.

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Lynn Lyman Interview continued

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