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‘CCC legacy’

‘They planted trees every day’

Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton The tree and stone laid in memory of CCC veteran Leo Beane, who died earlier this year.

The 10th annual Civilian Conservation Corps Reunion at the CCC statue in Starbrick was held on Friday.

With no living veterans in attendance, a small gathering at the statue was a time to honor and remember the men of the CCC and particularly the last local veteran to pass away – Leon Beane, who died earlier this year at the age of 96.

The CCC was a program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt intended to provide unskilled conservation related jobs to young men and help families struggling to find work in the Great Depression.

Beane lived most of his life in Forest County and was a regular attendee of the CCC reunions in Warren County.

He was a tree planter and then tree planter supervisor for about six months at the ANF-1 camp in Duhring, Forest County during his service as part of the CCC.

ANF-1 was the second CCC camp of about 4,500 in the nation. It was the first of 16 CCC camps on the Allegheny National Forest, and the first in Pennsylvania.

The Duhring CCC Camp was opened in 1933 and closed in 1942.

“We’re here honoring our dad,” one of his daughters said at Friday’s event. “Our dad, what he did for the country, was the first one to tell us (that) without the CCC the country would be a different place. We’re proud of our dad.”

Ed Atwood, of the Tionesta Valley Snowmobile Club, the host of the CCC reunions, said on Friday that Beane wasn’t initially interested in the reunions – and presumably the notoriety that comes with it – early on but kept coming back once he came once.

Martha Smith, who has co-authored a book on CCC veterans who went on to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, described Beane as a “very special CCC friend. (I) will never forget him.”

His “CCC legacy will live on for generations to come,” Smith said, because of the trees on the ANF which he planted that survive.

“He didn’t live a glamorous life,” Atwood said. “He lived a simple life.”

Trees are placed on the east side of the WCVB building as well as commemorative stones that mark the memory of other CCC veterans.

“He wasn’t ashamed to tell you he was a tree planter,” Atwood said of Beane. “They planted trees everyday.”

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