Visit to Coshocton

On a whim, we decided to spend a Sunday afternoon driving to Coshocton, OH where my grandfather's CPS camp was. Once there, I really had no idea where to find it. I found a local museum and they gave us a good lead. They suggested that the property was probably still owned by the soil and water conservation service and gave me their phone number (they were closed).  While we were busy looking at our phones to try to locate where this property may have been and a very friendly woman asked if she could help with something. We told her the jist of what we were looking for, and she suggested an old hydrologic research station and gave us directions. She didn't know anything about a CPS camp. I asked one other local and they had not heard of a CPS camp in the area either. 

We followed the kind woman's directions which led us through rolling hills and farm land. We drove past a U-shaped cement tunnel leading into the side of a farm field and realize that I've seen that in one of grandpa's old pictures! 

 

I found out later that it was a lysimeter which is a very specific device used to measure soil moisture.  We pulled up a little farther and came to a large rock with two plaques. One was in recognition of the North Appalachian Experimental Watershed and Hydrologic research station. The other plaque recognized the Civilian Conservation Corps which had also been on the same site. Not surprisingly but to my dismay, there was nothing about the CPS camp and the men who had contributed to the research there. 

From there, I have to admit that I went down the rabbit hole of trying to find out what kind of research was done there, when, and how significant it was. I found out that the research station had started collecting data from 1939 to 2009. They studied how different farming practices affected the various experimental watersheds that they created. They also developed some unique instrumentation that was later used all around the world. They developed weighing lysimeters (the first in the history of lysimeters) and the Coshocton wheel. For more information about the research station, check out http://www.ars.usda.gov/Aboutus/docs.htm?docid=8680 . Since Grandpa was there from 1942 to 1946, I wanted to find out what research was being done at that time. I found a paper from the US Dept. of Ag. titled Evaluation of Agricultural Hydrology by Monolith Lysimeters 1944-1955 which described what the lysimeters were, how they were built (with pictures) and what type of data was being collected at what time. The lysimeters were measuring runoff and percolation data during the time when grandpa was there. It was an amazing feeling to learn my grandpa and like-minded guys had contributed to such unique research that other scientists are still using!!! I wondered if his time doing farming research was one of the reasons why he wanted to be a farmer and always had a garden behind the barn back home. 

I also found out that the hydrologic research station was shut down in 2009 and the property is going up for auction. This was disappointing to me since I felt like the CO's contributions hadn't been recognized even by the locals or by the owners of the property (Granted this feeling only came from a few short talks with people). I thought about trying to at least put up a peace pole in their memory there. I have spoken  to a few very nice and informative soil and water conservation folks about the research and the property. Overall, it was an amazing find. 

Pictures and diversity

Holy crow, I didn't realize that its been over a month since I've made a post. I'll try to do better. I finally finished my last memoirs book and am now on to the history of CPS during WWII which was written in the 1950's. It is a reference that I've seen cited in almost every other book I've read on the topic. Its a great book so far but pretty dry.

My family brought some pictures from my Grandfather's time at camp that I scanned into the computer. I posted a lot of them on the photos and other media page of my blog. There are so many questions I'd love to ask him now about those pictures. I'd love to know more about the projects they were working on, the irrigation projects and Grandpa's work  as a milk inspector. My Dad had also saved some post cards that he wrote back to family. They were so fun to read. I think Grandpa took a trip to Florida during his time at CPS. The post card was from Florida and he talked about eating shrimp and taking a fishing charter. My Grandfather's brother may have been stationed/docked there during the war (?).

There were a few things I was thinking about while reading and looking through all the pictures. One thing that I hadn't really thought about before was that whether you were a soldier in the war or a CO, you had no idea how long the war would last when you went in. They left their previous lives and went into a very unknown situation and couldn't make any plans for the future. For a person like me who likes to have some kind of fun activity or trip to look forward to, that uncertainty is hard to conceive.

Another thing that I learned was that one of Grandpa's brothers joined the navy around the time Grandpa became a CO. It made me wonder how the family handled both perspectives. I asked Dad if he remembered any tension or if each view was accepted. Dad said he didn't remember any tension. I LOVE that! Made me so proud to be a part of a family that accepts different views. My Dad became a CO during Vietnam while his brother served in the military. Grandpa supported both decisions. My Dad had to serve the county for 2 years. My dad chose a position in social work because of it.  I'm so blessed to be part of a family that has served in so many ways.

One last comment. One of the most common misconceptions I've come across about COs is that they were mostly draft dodgers. There may have been a few, yes.  Most of the stories that I've read of men who described the other people they lived with at the camps were far from it. The majority of COs were very willing to sacrifice their own lives; they didn't believe in sacrificing someone else's.

Baltimore

This will be another personal post. I haven't had much time to finish up my book and a lot has been on my mind about recent events in Baltimore. I went to Baltimore for a quick weekend get-away Friday-Sunday morning and saw some of what has been on the media. From the security of our hotel we saw a helicopter with a spot light and bull horn several times circling overhead as well as 30 or so police in riot gear. We saw 3-4 police cars parked together at a street corner nearby. At that time, the protesters had dispersed from Camden Yards which was a block away from the hotel.

I wasn't a part of the peaceful protest so I will be first to tell you that I don't know what went on. Since we were in the city at the time, I have paid special attention to the news lately. This is definitely something grandpa would have written about.  Social media (like this blog) really impact how these events are portrayed.   I really appreciate people posting pictures and video from the event and explaining what happened around them at the time.  There has been some conflicting stories told by the media vs told by the people who were there. If anyone has been glued to it like I have, I'd suggest looking for youtube videos that don't come from a mainstream media outlet. There were 10,000 peaceful protesters and a few hundred have been arrested for the atrocities inflicted on the city. 200/10,000 is 2% (to put it in perspective). These approximate numbers have come from media outlets and hopefully have been fact checked :(. There have been great numbers of people who have tried to stop the violence and who have cleaned up the city. Hundreds of people volunteered to clean the streets on Tuesday and many people unified during this event to help their neighbors. Many people have spoken up about peaceful protest and violence not being the answer. I feel for their struggle and the larger issues that are part of it. 

Looking closer to home, I work above a city police department and would love to get their take on the situation. I also wanted to find out if conflict resolution annual certification is a requirement for the police force. I'd also like to look into conflict resolution classes for myself as there are a few times that my job warrants having that kind of training. 

Peace be with you and light your way!

https://youtu.be/0HaaRZ8nxd4

Everyday peace

Alright, I have to switch gears a little and post a little something more personal.  I'm 3/4 of the way through the 2nd book of memoirs but a few things happened this week  that I found more meaningful.

So, my friend and I exchange books and internet articles a lot. Recently, I got one about a marine's decision to become a CO and his experience. It was a great article. On that same webpage, I came across another article by an anthropologist trying to figure out how to study particularly peaceful communities. How do you measure a peaceful community? The article had some excellent points. Here is a link http://aeon.co/magazine/society/margaret-paxson-peace-conflict/?fb_ref=Default. The article got me thinking that this peaceful lifestyle that many of these COs have described is a day to day practice. How do you change your thinking about everyday conflict or perceptions that we routinely have?

The same weekend, I read that article, I was hiking with my husband and we got into a discussion about categorizing people. For instance, if you are driving around and see someone on the side of the road, we tend to immediately categorize people based on a number of things; what clothes they wear, how they walk, their age, their skin color etc.  Admittedly, I do this all the time. For instance, I saw a guy in a pair of khaki pants and deck shoes waiting for his car to be detailed and I immediately made a judgement about how much money he must make. My husband's point was that it was human nature to do this and if we put the person in the correct category based on a multitude of observations, then its valid, not necessarily right or wrong; similar to putting several dark cloud observations into the category of storm clouds. I acknowledge that this is a byproduct of evolution.  I grew to feel really uncomfortable talking about it. His point was that there isn't anything inherently "good" or "bad" about categories. They are just ways that we lump data together to try to piece together the world around us. I think my uncomfortable feeling stemmed from all the baggage that may come with those categories.

My other thought was that love and connection can be stronger than all that baggage.  So, if  I take an objective perspective,  instead of instantly identifying people as "other" or apart from me, I should try to think of things that I may share. The article brought up the fact that communities that tend to show the most resilience to conflict are those in which there is a mix of different categories of people, different socio-economic classes etc.  The point was that people will find common ground where there was once an "us" and "them."

My goal for myself is to look at the guy with the khaki shorts and think, "Look, that guy likes shorts. I like shorts or I wonder if he doesn't like socks as much as I don't like socks since he's wearing deck shoes". We'll see if the brain-training helps me to feel more peaceful day to day. I'll keep you posted :)

Depression and love

Happy belated Easter! I thought about Grandpa a lot this Easter. He would have definitely written something about peace and the resurrection or something about sin and hope.  Well, I finally finished the one book of memoirs and started another called "We Have Just Begun to Not Fight." I have to admit, I'm getting kind of burnt-out on memoirs. I need to get back into something else. My dad recently found some old postcards of Grandpa's so I'm looking forward to reading those. If I can, I'll scan some in and post them.

There was one interesting interview in my most recent book from a gentlemen who was actually in NSBRO (the peace church committee that ran  the CPS camps). He said that he didn't think the CPS camps were run the way they should have. He stated that the government's involvement hamstrung a lot of what they could have done. The purpose of the peace churches was to spread the pacifist message and help out with war recovery efforts. The purpose of the selective service was to keep the camps out of site and out of the minds of the public.  These were cross purposes that came head to head quite often. After the war, the peace churches and many of the COs went on to do reconstruction work.  Another interesting point that this new book brought up was the impact to the wives of the men in camp.  Many of them had difficulty holding a job after their husband's CO status had been learned.

Another insight in this new book was that many of the CPS campers had trouble adjusting and became very depressed.  These men were used to being around their families and used to having meaningful work that would support that family.  They had trouble adjusting without that support group and that purpose to which they had assigned self worth. The book went on to describe that one psychologist even had trouble getting the approval to release these men from the camps for medical reasons. The camp's director had to re-write (with the doctor's final approval) many of the patient's psychological descriptions stating that they were a danger to themselves or others in order to get them released. There has always been a stigma of weakness ascribed to mental health patients and this was compounded by the fact that these men were also objecting to participate in a war that many others were willing to sacrifice their lives for (and kill others) which is also seen by many as a weakness.

I've often found it interesting how our culture perceives weakness. Love is often looked at as a weaker alternative to fighting. I know in my relationships, when I get really really angry, it is much more difficult and takes much more strength to not yell or want to strike out, but to stay calm and realize that love is still there which makes it worth the effort to WORK through problems instead of resorting to violence. In my experience, love takes much more fortitude and strength than fighting. Next time you're watching TV, pay attention to how strength and weakness are portrayed and see if it makes sense considering your experience.

Expectation

I've been pretty slow in reading lately. I'm about 2/3rd of the way through the Men of Peace book. There have been a few things that struck me about the last few entries I've read. Most of the men have reported that they think today's world is much worse off in terms of our propensity for war. They also have told stories about their difficulty finding jobs if they reveal their CO experiences. The last few accounts have been stories from men involved in the guinea pig experiments (starvation and Hepatitis experiments).  One gentlemen stated that 400 people volunteered for the starvation experiment which only required 36.  I thought that the number of applicants really showed how much the men wanted to help. They were told that these starvation experiments would help to determine how best to provide aid to countries in need. For instance, do you send meat or just grain?

Side note.  I listen to a lot of pod casts. One of the most recent was about how expectations affect us. For example, the pod cast told the story of a blind boy who never had the expectation that he couldn't do anything. He learned how to climb trees, hike by himself and even ride a bike. He learned how to use echolocation to lighten up the same portions of your brain that light up in visual people especially those areas associated with motion (but not the areas associated with light and color).  His brain created images that he used to map out his environment using the signals he got back from echolocation instead of the images created from sensory data from your eyes. He grew up to teach other blind children the technique. Most of his teaching was for the families who had to learn to let go and allow the child to explore.

It made me wonder how much of society's propensity toward war may be attributed to the expectation that war is the only way to gain a certain result.  It seems like a very ingrained idea or passion similar to the idea that the blind can't lead the blind (proved untrue at least in the story of the man in my pod cast). It was nice to hear a story about how that had been done in a few small cases. I love people who challenge expectations and ask "why?". Why can't I climb a tree? Why do I need to eliminate this person for the world to be a better place?

Food for thought for this week.

Peace be with you

Fathers and Wives

Sorry for not posting last week. I hadn't had time to get through any more of my reading. This week I'm about half way through a book which contains first hand accounts of WWII COs. It was created using the same set of interview questions for each person. So far I'm learning a lot of different things. For one, it appeared that during the 40's it was perfectly acceptable for men and women to date multiple people at the same time. I didn't expect that. I guess I thought that was more of a modern notion. So far, the men whose stories I've read were very involved in their churches and went on to continue work associated with their churches or other social work. Many of them adopted children as well. Very few had told stories about others not accepting them because of their beliefs. I was surprised at that given the other things I've read. It could also be that these interviews were done very late in these men's lives and maybe the good stories outweighed the bad and didn't seem worth mentioning at that time (there's also the scientific side of memory that has shown that every time you remember an event, you change it in your mind).There was one story of a person who  had participated in the starvation experiments and had kept a journal. The journal was later used to write a book solely about those experiments. The interviewee didn't seem to dwell on any sort of hardship from the experiment. Many of them were at odds with their fathers. So far, many of the fathers believed much more strongly in work than in church, college or pacifism. Many also told stories that exemplify the fact that many of the other COs at the camps had very different beliefs and lifestyles. There were a few men who had gone to the same camp as grandpa. They both mentioned having to go to Oregon to fight fires from there. I get the impression that several of them jumped around a little. I don't know if grandpa ever had to go outside of Ohio during his time at the camp. Another interesting commonality among these stories was that they stated that they did not waiver in their decision to be a CO. They were raised in an environment which supported that idea. I would of thought there may be more uncertainty during that time. I also found it interesting that all of the wives worked (mostly nurses or school teachers) and traveled with their husbands working on various social projects. Those are just a few interesting notes and highlights.  More stories next time.

Peace be with you