An edited version of my grandmother, Josephine M. Staats Ellsworth's memories:
In 1933 at the height of the Depression my husband Ivan J. Ellsworth (1907-1970), a 1930’s graduate from Forestry College of New York at the University of Syracuse became employed by the National Park Service under the Civilian Conservation Corp. an agency created by Franklyn Delano Roosevelt then President of the U.S.A. It was designed to create employment for Americans. [CCC & National Park Service: An Administrative History]
Ivan's first assignment was at Mammoth Cave to be a National Park. (the history of the park shows it to have been made a national park in 1926, so I wonder if her memory was incorrect on this).
We were married in the summer of August 5, 1932. He was working in Landscaping as a partner with a man whose name was J. Morton Franklyn.
Because of the Depression, the number of available jobs was reduced and Ivan was granted the privilege of a leave of absence from his partnership.
He started as Assistant Forester at Mammoth Cave and by November I (Josephine M. Staats, 1911-2007) joined him in Kentucky at Cave City, Kentucky, a small town about ten miles from Mammoth Cave.
Cave City was a country town in which there was a hotel to house Cave visitors. People who washed clothes for residents of Cave City carried baskets of clothing to and from their homes. They would wash the contents of the baskets and carry the clean clothing back to the owners., like I’ve seen in Central America in the Guatemala Mountains.
We were in Kentucky for about eleven years. While there we were introduced to Southern customs.
Ivan moved us to a residence area at Mammoth Cave when an area for Park employees was built.
During the War in the East the Custodian of Kings Mountain National Military Park was transferred to the Navy and Ivan was transferred there temporarily as Custodian and moved to the park in South Carolina.
The climate was different and there were snakes and other new experiences. The people in York, South Carolina were friendly, true southerners. We shopped for our groceries in North Carolina. I got caught in an ice storm with the car and scarred the windshield to the extent that we couldn’t see through it and had to replace it.
When the War was over we had to move back to our house at Mammoth Cave Kentucky and the people who were living in it while we were at Kings Mountain didn’t like it. But they had to move anyway.
We’d had a very nice home at King's Mountain. I had chores as wife of the Custodian and did not seek other employment there.
Back at Mammoth Cave I sought employment at the Hotel. Ivan returned to being a Ranger. He expressed a desire to move and he was soon transferred to the Blue Ridge Parkway as a District Ranger which required patrolling the Parkway in Virginia.
I soon became a teacher in a mountain children’s school. That was quite an assignment. I had a degree so was assigned as sixth grade. They had a stove with a smokepipe running to the outside long enough the ornery boys poked holes in it with their sharp pen knives.
It was twenty some miles from our cabin in the Mts. On the Blue Ridge Parkway to Willis, Virginia where I was employed as a teacher of 13 to 15 yr. old children. Some very conscientious and bright; some lazy and derelict. One young girl told me “I can’t imagine anyone who can’t milk a cow."
Ivan was ready to quit the National Parks if he had to continue on the Blue Ridge in Virginia. After nine months he was transferred to another proposed National Area, in his home state of New York, at Saratoga National Historical Park [superintendent from 1947-1963]. He was there to manage the park until it became a full fledged National Park as it is now. We had a thirteen room dwelling built in 1850 or 60. Very roomy. I taught in a one room schoolhouse with eight children enrolled. It was a challenge. I had two, a boy and a girl, in kindergarten, none in first, two in second, one in third, one in fourth, two in fifth near Schuylerville. We lived in New York State from 1946 to 1963. A whole new museum-business office was built. Very modern. The Philip Schuyler summer home in Schuylerville was shown owned by the National Park Service.
There has been a U.S. Soldier’s Cemetery added I’ve been told. We were transferred to Shiloh National Military Park [superintendent from 1963-1967], near Savannah, Tenn in November of 1963.
I stayed on, now teaching in Greenwich Central School, Greenwich, New York. I drove ten miles or so every teaching day. I taught in a two room school in Middle Falls N.Y. for several years kindergarten through second grade. Then I transferred to a Central First Grade where I taught for eleven years.
I taught Sound-Symbol with a specialists workbooks. The specialist is still living, active in Maine, near Portland. He has his doctorate. I have my Masters I earned it in New York.
The transfer to Shiloh National Military took place for Ivan in 1964. That location in Tennessee was a Civil War area. By now I had a Masters degree and taught reading in a rural kindergarten through high school. I was there when President Johnson was in office and had the best material to work with.
We were in the Shiloh’s National Military superintendent’s residence a log house well laid out and very commodious. [the house has since been torn down by the Park Service]
Ivan and I were there from 1963-1967. I moved there in 1964 June when school was out in Greenwich. I was there for two and a half years. I substituted before I was employed to teach reading.
You see I moved around and got along in every place and often did not crave to move. [she was a woman who craved strong and deep roots more than all else]
After two and a half years doing my hostess assignment, we were transferred to Richmond National Battlefield [superintendent from 1967-1969] area which was on both sides of the James River, controlled from the office building in Richmond by my husband whose health was failing [he had emphysema]. He finally resigned. I was still teaching reading in Chesterfield County, in five schools, mostly acquainting teachers to what methods to use. I left my job as a Reading Teacher in Chesterfield County after one year and was employed by a Private School named Chicahominy which was interesting I taught fourth grade.
When Ivan retired he was 62 years old. We had a home in Wilmington, Delaware. I finished the year and returned to my home town in 1969, where I became a sixth grade teacher for three years. I left public school teaching and went to the University of Delaware’s Reading Study Deptartment. I continued to take courses, then became a private tutor for twenty years at Educational Service until I was 82 years old, around 1993.
