Letters

Letter submitted by Helen Larkin Burton - Shenandoah County Virginia

(Note of Information :  The CCC Camp at Columbia Furnace was NF-7, Company 333, and called Camp George Washington.   Locally it is referred to the CCC Camp at Wolf Gap.  It became a black camp shortly after it was organized.  James Wilkins who was the project superintendent for Camp Roosevelt also worked at Wolf Gap.   Camp George Washington was the only CCC camp that was split between two states -- Shenandoah County Virginia and Hardy County West Virginia.  Shenandoah County had only two camps:  Camp Roosevelt and Camp George Washington.  Larkin's Store is still a thriving facet of the Columbia Furnace community.  

Camp Strawderman is not a CCC camp but an all girl's summer camp that focuses on equestrian skills.  It was established in 1929 and still serves as a traditional rustic summer camp.  www.campstrawderman.com )

I'm Helen Larking Burton, and my father, Robert G. Larkin, owned Larkin's Store at Columbia Furnace.  I was born in 1932 in what is now a gray house (the first one on the right on Stony Creek Boulevard) just down from the store.  In the early days, the store was in a small wooden building on the corner of Route 42 and 675.  After two "upgrades', the store was relocated to where it is now, on the site of the old Columbia Furnace ironworks.  My brother took over after my father retired, and Everett sold the store a year or two before he died in 1992.  In addition to the store, where we sold everything general store in the country carried -- food, staples, nails, fertilizer, feed for animals, etc., The U.S. Post Office occupied a space in the building.  Many of the women of the community would come in with eggs, black walnuts, etc., to barter for sugar, flour, etc. (Also, my father barbered, and his barber chair was in another corner).  We sold Sinclair  gasoline.  My uncle, Clarence Larkin, was the postmaster, appoint by Roosevelt's Postmaster General James Farley.  My father was the assistant postmaster for this busy forth-class post office, and he became postmaster after his brother died.  

The Columbia Furnace Post Office served the CCC camp at Wolf Gap, as well as Strawderman Camp nearby.  Someone from the camp came in to pick up their mail every day.  Early on, I was too young to work in the store, but 'Hung out" there a lot.  I and all my siblings (four sisters and one brother), worked in the store when we were old enough to make change until we left home.  Having never seen a black person before, it was quite a novelty to see the men from the camp when they came to the store -- I know they had there own commissary at Wolf Gap, but they came to the Post Office to buy stamps, etc., (My uncle used to tell the story about one gentle who wanted to send an airmail letter to Washington, DC, and he was unable to convince that person that he would be waiting his money to buy an airmail stamp because nothing could go airmail until it got to Washing.  Nevertheless, in order to satisfy the customer, he did put an airmail stamp on the letter and put it into the big, gray mailbag to go on its way to Edinburg, then on the train to Washington.)

We watched as these "CCC boys" worked on the roads -- (the highway department may differ with me, but I remember the paving of 675 in front of our house) -- can remember the smell of the tar as it was poured, the gravel as it was being laid.

We had two mail deliveries per day then.  The Washington Times-Herald was usually in the 11:00 am mail, and it was eagerly awaited by my father and uncle -- and the children as we learned to read and appreciate the newspaper.  Dad used to say he was going to have to order seven copies so we would each have out own and thus avoid fights over who got what section first.  My mother was the last one to get the paper.  On Sundays, a number of papers were delivered (don't' know who was the distributor) to the store, and the CCC people would come to pick up their copies or may times, perhaps by prior arrangements, we would deliver their papers as the family went by the camp on our way to visit some of my mother's family in West Virginia.  

Don't remember what year it was, but when the camp ceased operations and the land and buildings were declared surplus, my father bought two of the buildings and had them moved to the property near the present store.  I believe one was used as a storage shed and another was rented to people who needed housing.  One building is still there.  I'm told that those who witnessed this operation stared in awe and disbelief at the sight of these two buildings slowly coming down the mountain on some type of trailer. 

On another note, my fathers' birthplace, a log cabin, which was on the present Wolf Gap Road (along the creek after crossing the low water bridge) was sold to Strawderman Camp.  It was combined with a cabin bough from the Vann family, and it is presently known as "Van Larkin" cabin and still in use at Camp Strawderman.

Helen Larkin Burton - 2004