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Article: What the C's sawed: a Depression-era government works program did more than save families and forests; it helped make skiing what it is today.(Civilian Conservation Corps)
- Article from:
- Ski
- Article date:
- February 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Bonnier Corporation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In 1928, when Emerson Baker of Gloucester, Mass., was 11 years old, his father ran off and left the family. Because there was no welfare system then as we know it today, well-meaning relatives advised Baker's mother to turn Emerson and his four younger sisters over to the State as wards. She refused, determined to somehow manage. She took in laundry and sewing, washed walls at the local hospital and made molasses popcorn balls wrapped in waxed paper for her children to sell door-to-door.
When Emerson graduated from high school in 1934, in the midst of the Depression, jobs were so scarce that he worked at a market for $5 a week in groceries. A year later he jumped ...