Month: September 1945

Monday Evening,

Richard ,
    This will be very short but it’ll tell you what I want to. Just in case I’m too busy tomorrow I want to get this done tonight. Sometime Wednesday I’m  leaving for Ft. Dix, New Jersey. I won’t be much, if any closer to home than I am now but at least I’ll be getting out of the South. There are a lot of regions in this country that would be worse than New Jersey, too.
    I wish I knew what my address will be but we’ll just have to wait for that. I’ll let you know about it just as soon as I can.
    I suppose school is going strong at home now. How are things coming with you?
    Well be good and lots of luck to you,
             Your brother,  
                Donald

Mon. Evening

Dear Folks,
    I’m going to substitute a short letter on Monday for my usual Tuesday letters. Then if things work out so that I can I may write you tomorrow or Wednesday morning.
    Here’s the news as much as I have of it and I think it’s official. Sometime the 12th, Wednesday, I’m leaving Ft. Benning for Ft. Dix, New Jersey. I suppose I’ll get there sometime Thursday or Thursday night. I think that Ft. Dix  is the headquarters of the second service command so I might be sent somewhere else in that area. It’ll be almost as far from home as I am here but even that could be worse. The part I’m really thankful for is that I’m leaving the South. I did want to be where I could at least get home on a three day pass if I ever wanted to but I doubt if that’ll be possible now. I won’t be in a bad part of the country anyway. 
    Well how did school turn out today? I suppose you’re ready to get started tomorrow on the real work. I wonder about the teachers but I suppose Marvin found something on the last minute. How does Jimmie-immy-immy like his new teacher? I guess that I’ll have to write Linda and find out how she likes school.
    I wish that I knew what my address will be but I guess I’ll have to wait till I get there to find out. I’ll certainly let you know just as soon as I can.
    Perhaps before I get to write you again  I will have crossed the two year mark in my army career. I feel confident though that before another September 13th has rolled around I’ll be doing something else.
    Well I’ve just about said my speech for this time. Be good and God bless you.
                      Love, 
                          Donald

Sunday - 9th
   September

Hi Richard ,
    Your last letter to me was included in one from Orestes but I don’t suppose you’ll be home to read their letter so I’d better write to you. I’ll bet that things are buzzing pretty strongly about school at home today. It wouldn’t surprise me much if Dad spends part of the afternoon down at the school house.
    How do you feel about Purdue by this time? I expect you sort of miss pharmacy but maybe the botany takes enough of your time to make up for it. How do you like the Professor?
    I thought that I’d know what would be going to happen to me by this time but I’m still waiting. It’s pretty certain that I won’t go overseas now so I do have something to be thankful for. But I’ve about lost hope (at least I’ve tried to) of being sent anywhere near Indiana. I won’t complain though even if it turns out to be Mississippi, Louisiana or Texas. One thing about it though, I’m too far away now to get home on anything less than a furlough. So if I am sent even further away it won’t make this any worse. Some of the fellows got orders yesterday for shipment tomorrow and more orders are supposed to come down the middle of the week. I think that most of us will be gone. If I find out anything for sure before I send this out in the morning I’ll add it on the bottom. If I don’t you’ll know that I am still hoping. It’s impossible to try to guess or figure out anything from what you hear because most of what is said is either idle gossip or wishful thinking.
    I went to our church services this morning and, of course, I wondered about you. I expect though, that if you were in Lafayette you attended there.
    How’s the swimming progressing by this time? I haven’t done any myself so I’m not learning much. 
    Well hope you are still getting along OK. I’ll be looking for word from you one of these days. Good luck.
                     Your brother, 
                              Donald

Mon. Morn
No news yet. I’ll let you know as soon as I can if and when anything happens.

Saturday Evening

Dear Family,
    If I wait till tomorrow evening or Monday morning to mail this I might have some definite news  to tell you. In fact there are supposed to be some orders come down this afternoon. There have been no passes given out for this weekend yet just as a precaution against any shipping orders for tomorrow. It would be sort of bad for someone to be gone on Sunday and be supposed to leave that day.  Things seem to be pretty definite that most of us will be gone before the end of next week. But there is a little catch in it now just as you might expect. Someone tried to make us believe at first that we’d be sent to camps close to home. But from what I hear now it’ll be somewhere in the states. Anywhere on this side will be better than it might have been so I’m going to be thankful. The good Lord hasn’t forgotten me yet so whatever happens will be OK.
    It usually happens that I get your letters on the days that I don’t write to you. Then by the time the next day rolls around about half of what I thought of to say when I read the letter has slipped my mind. That’s one reason why I wanted to be sure to get this one started today. I certainly wasn’t unhappy to get your letter of the sixth at noon.
    I am very well pleased with the way my Eversharp writes and thank you for writing a letter with it to give me a sample. This one is plenty good enough for now but it always has had a tendency to let to let the ink drip out (there’s a sample of this on the other side of this page). I ought to be fixed pretty well now for pens.
    I don’t think that you can complain at all about the way your potato crop turned out. As far as I can remember that’s about the best potatoes that have ever been raised there.
    I was afraid that you were getting into another all week job when you were talking about painting the benches at school. But if that’s over, it’s done now  and it makes one more thing that won’t have to be worried about later. How does the teacher situation look at this stage of the game?
    Now since my money order has arrived OK I don’t want you to forget to spend $18.75 of it as I told you to. Thanks a whole lot for the clippings that you enclosed in the letter. I get a bunch a lot of enjoyment from them and that’s one thing that you don’t have to write yourself. I suppose that by the time I get settled for good my subscription to the Tribune will be expired. Don’t subscribe to it until I think about it some more. I hardly think it is worth the price. How much would it cost for postage for you to send it to me a couple times a week?
    Well so long for now. I’ll write more later.

Sunday Noon
    I got a letter written to Richard this morning after I returned from church - then before I could get a start on this I dropped off to sleep. It doesn’t make much difference anyway, though, because I haven’t anything special to do this afternoon. In fact I sort of wish that I had something to do instead of just wasting the whole afternoon. I feel better off with a little to do then just nothing at all. Since we’re leaving they won’t lend any more books from the library so I can’t even read a book. I did get a couple of books read, though, since I’ve been down here. I’ve been thinking seriously of signing up for one of those government sponsored correspondence courses when I get to the next camp. That would depend, of course, on how much free time I would have and what sort of job I get. With all the free time I’ve had in the last two weeks down here I could have done quite a bit of studying.
    I wasn’t wrong about orders coming out last evening but it just happened that I wasn’t on them. There’s nothing to do but wait and maybe I’ll know something yet before I get this finished. If I do I’ll let you know - otherwise I can’t think of anything else that I want to say. Hope everything is coming OK in Orestes and that school gets off to a good start tomorrow. I’ll bet there’s a lot of school talk flying around today and it wouldn’t surprise me if Dad didn’t spend some time down there this afternoon. Be good and luck to you, 
      Donald

Mon. Morn
    No news yet. I’ll inform you as soon as possible when I learn anything.

Thursday Eve
The 6th I think

Hello Family,
    My address is still Ft. Benning and you know the rest of the story. I know just one little fact about my moving though than I did before. We were told that we would ship between the 8th and the 14th. So by this time next week I’ll possibly be on my way. Maybe in a few more days I’ll know some of the details.
    Of course you’ve seen in the paper that people with more than 45 points on May 12 will stay in the states. Well that just about does me up right. I only made it by a margin of two points. But on something like that I guess a miss is as good as a mile. Maybe I’ll get a break yet.
    Before I forget it I want to tell you about something that you may be getting through the mail one of these days. There is a book containing the history of our regiment being made and I ordered one. It could either be payed for now or after it is published. That may be several months in the future and so  many things might happen that I decided to pay for it when they are finished. But I had to give an address and the only permanent one I have is Orestes. When the bill comes send in the four dollars. If I haven’t provided for it before it happens, don’t forget to remind me of it. That’s a good bit to pay for something like that but I hope it will be worth it.
    It made me happy to get a letter from you yesterday. And since it was one of your longer weekend letters, there was a little extra reading and it made me just a little happier. After Labor Day I’ll bet that the garage looks a little more like the finished product. If you get the coal moved then it won’t be very long before you can put the car inside. 
    I think I finally got my books straightened up the other day. At least I hope so anyway. Since most of it would go into bonds anyway, it made little difference to me how they fixed it. There was less changing to be done to make it one $18.75 and one $7.5 bond. So that’s the way it stands now. If they keep coming as they have in the past, everything will be alright.   
    Well I think when I started I had at least one more thing to say to you but I can’t think of it now. If I don’t think of it before I mail this in the morning, I don’t suppose it was very important anyway.
                       So long, 
                             Donald
Fri. Morn.
    I know now what one more thing I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you. I wanted to inform you about my sawed thumb. There’s no scab at all on it now and only a little area about half the size of the end of a lead pencil even looks unnatural. I think all of that will come off eventually and then you’ll have to look close to see that anything happened. Even the notch in the nail will be grown out in another couple of weeks.