William Ellsworth Somers
This photo of my uncle was most likely taken in Baltimore during WWII, where he worked in the defense industry. As soon as I can find a photo showing him more nearly as he appeared in his CCC days, I'll post it.
Buddy, as the family called him (he was known as 'Messer' to his friends) grew up on Smith Island, twelve miles by water from Crisfield, Maryland, the only inhabited island in the Chesapeake Bay not connected to the mainland by a bridge. As did virtually all of the men there, he began working on the water as a commercial oysterman and crabber at a young age. It is hard to imagine a place in the United States more remote than Smith Island was at that time. The only way to the Island was by boat, but there was little need to leave; stores on the Island sold clothes and food, with the Islanders' diets relying heavily on home grown produce and waterfowl and seafood obtained by the men and boys. While oystermen working aboard dredge boats were gone from home for days or weeks at a time, they went where the boat went, putting into one port or another at the whim of the captain. 'Buy boats' purchased oysters that had been harvested by hand tonging, saving the men from a 24 mile round trip to Crisfield. While no one who lived there at the time would say it was a life of luxury, it was the life their ancestors had lived before them. Everybody had enough; that was all they expected. |
Buddy was a highly intelligent young man. As a boy, he and his neighbor Seymour ('Sicky') Kitching had stretched a wire between their homes so they could communicate, most likely by a homemade telegraph. (In later years, he took a correspondence course in electronics, built a number of Heathkit projects, and when personal computers came on the scene, bought one of the first in the area and taught himself to operate it.) He did well in school and later successfully operated a general store, but spent most of his life as a waterman.
Had he been born somewhere else, Uncle Buddy would have been a very successful man. After all, he was born on an island with a population of less than five hundred people and became a success there.
But getting there was not easy. When the stock market crashed in 1929, sending the country into a deep depression, he was only 14, and life was even more difficult than it had been.
Had he been born somewhere else, Uncle Buddy would have been a very successful man. After all, he was born on an island with a population of less than five hundred people and became a success there.
But getting there was not easy. When the stock market crashed in 1929, sending the country into a deep depression, he was only 14, and life was even more difficult than it had been.
Off the Island and Into the Woods
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Buddy had done very well at the small junior high on Smith Island, where he befriended a young teacher named Walter Bradford. When the teacher accepted a position at another school, he arranged for Uncle Buddy to board with his parents in Nanticoke (Maryland) and attend school there. He excelled, not only as a student but as a member of the district champion varsity soccer team. The school wasn't large, and had barely enough boys to field a team, but apparently Buddy saw it as in some way preferable to boarding and going to school in Crisfield.
Despite his academic promise, the reality of life in the Depression necessitated his dropping out of school in his senior year. He became a waterman, a term understood locally to mean a commercial crabber and oysterman. On April 10, 1933, Congress created the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of the first of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. By the end of October of the same year, Buddy had travelled to Crisfield, where he completed his Emergency Conservation Work Application Memorandum. This was duly approved by Dr. Stephen Fuller, a local dentist, politician, and soldier, who within less than a decade would participate in his third war. The next day, October 27, 1933, he reported to the Salisbury (MD) Armory for his physical, which was certified by E. Herndeen, a Captain in the Field Artillery, oddly enough. In two days, on October 29, 1933, he was sworn in and began three weeks of conditioning at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. There, he received his uniform, literacy and aptitude testing, and his orders to the CCC camp south of Snow Hill. He was not unlike other enrollees physically, being 19 years old and standing 5’ 8”, but at 131 pounds, he was about twelve pounds lighter than average. Humorously, the clerk typing entries on his form seems not to have any knowledge of Buddy’s profession - he termed him a ‘waterboy.’ November 22, 1933, Buddy began his service at Company 1318, below Snow Hill, Maryland. He was lucky in that regard, as most CCC enrollees came from Eastern cities and worked in the Western half of the country. The camp was designated as a Forestry Camp, although according to his personnel file, he was assigned various road building tasks. Because of his relative nearness to his home, he did return occasionally, but with the burden of finding transportation and the part of his trip involving boat travel, it wasn't a weekly occurrence. It is unknown if he was in camp over Christmas of 1933 and was able to partake of the feast prepared by the CCC cooks, such as that described in the menu on this site. Although CCC enrollments were for a period of six months, and despite the fact that $25 per month was subtracted from his pay and sent home to his mother, where it undoubtedly came in very handy, Buddy resigned from the program on February 16, 1934. The reason is unknown, although it is surmised that he wanted to go back to work on the water and needed time to prepare for the season. At the present time, that is all I know about Uncle Buddy's term in the CCC. If you read this website, please contact me. I’m getting lonesome. Contact me at jr_somers then one of the at things, then a msn and a dot and a com |