Category: Letters

Separation Center
Dix, New Jersey
October 10, 1945
1PM

Dear Family,
    I just barely finished reading your letter of Oct. 8; and since air mail makes such good time I’ll send this one that way. Air mail doesn’t make quite such good time coming this way but as you can see it does get here in two days instead of three.
    I was glad to get news of the anniversary celebration and am anxiously awaiting word about how it turns out. It’s quite alright with me to get flowers with my money - and especially since you’re fixing it so the rest of the grandsons in service are doing the same.
    I was also pleased to get a good or at least better report on Uncle Paul ’s health.
    Like you, I don’t quite understand about Waldo and Charlie’s getting furloughs. But I’m not going to worry about it and certainly not feel offended. I’ll just feel that I’m doing a job that’s too important for that (40 day furloughs) and maybe they aren’t. And here’s another thing that you might as well get prepared for whether it happens or not. Somebody whose been in a lot shorter time than I have will be lucky and get out before I do. It’s just like it is about anything else; someone is bound to get rubbed. Just smile about it. Even when I do become eligible to get out, I can be held a while. Anyone working in a separation center can be declared essential (in fact, I think everyone is considered essential) and then you’re just about at their mercy. It looks as if I’ll be stuck a while anyway. They are starting to discharge men with 70 points now. And in time it will be lowered to 60 but I understand that’s as low as it will go. Then they’ll start getting out according to length of service. So again I’ll be stuck because it’ll be quite a while before they get down to two year men. I don’t expect anything till the middle of March anyway.
    Well I hope things are still running normally with you guys. I told you that I’m working nights now and I’m getting along OK.
    I didn’t tell you but I also got a letter from Richard  today.
    Be good and luck to you.
          Your son and brother, 
               Donald

Scanned in color because of the color of the letterhead

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Ft. Dix, N.J.
October 4, 1945

Hello Everybody,
    On my day off for the last two weeks I could almost feel like it was Sunday but somehow today doesn’t make me feel the least bit that way. It’s a chance to rest and catch up on whatever you might want to do but still there’s something important missing.
    I wonder if you are having the sort of weather that New Jersey has had for the last few days. I don’t suppose so though because I don’t remember seeing much of this at home. Usually, you know, if the sun shines very much in Indiana it begins to warm up a little. But not here. Almost all week the sun has been shining as brightly as it does in mid-summer. But there has been a steady bitter-cold wind and the temperature feels almost at the freezing point. It’s not a bad wind but I suppose it’s cooled by the ocean. On the inside looking out you almost think it's summer but just as soon as you get outside you know different. If I’m not mistaken there was just a touch of frost on the ground yesterday morning. I can’t say that I mind this cool weather though - in fact - I almost like it.
    I got something done this morning that I’ve been thinking about almost ever since I’ve been up here. I got a pair of khakis packaged up that I’m going to start home this afternoon. I was issued it in Ft. Benning when we were wearing a lot of khakis and since it is an extra more than the three we are authorized, I’m not charged with it. If I keep it till it comes time to turn in my army clothes (I hope it comes anyway) I’ll just have to turn it in. But since it’s not on my clothing record, if I don’t have it there’ll be no questions arise. I’m not sending it home as a uniform but just as clothes to get wear from. I may even want the tails of the shirt cut off square someday. The shirt seems a little darker than the pants but I think a couple of washings will fix that. You can see that they’re plenty dirty but I hope you won’t mind too bad to take care of that.
    In the mail yesterday, I received a letter and a roll of Tribunes from Richard  and the little quarterly devotional book from the Mission Circle. I sort of hope I’ll get a letter from you guys today. I don’t know any recent happenings to ask you about so I’ll just hope that things in general are OK.
    I’m going to put an air mail stamp on this, so you can see if it helps any on the time.
             Be good, 
                 Donald
    Pardon the scribbling. I’m writing with this on my lap so maybe that partly accounts for it I hope. 

Oct. 2, 1945

Dear Folks,
    Well about the only thing I can promise about this letter is that it’ll be pretty short. And the only excuse I have is that I don’t have very much to tell you.
     I received your letter of Sept. 28 yesterday at noon and the box containing cap, sox and stationary today. Thanks a million. In the letter you more or less agreed with my idea of getting flowers for the anniversary celebration with my money. Well I still say for you to do as you see best. I hope the money that I sent gets there alright. If you want to say that I payed for the flowers, OK. Or if you want to get something else with my money and let someone else get the flowers, that’s OK too. I want to do what’s best but I don’t know what it is.
    I can’t truthfully give you any answer to your question about whether air mail gets here faster or not. I just haven’t paid enough attention to know.
    I can’t think of anything that I want to tell you about my work except that I’m still at it. I don’t mind it too bad, but I’m always pretty tired when night comes.
    I hope things are still running alright with you. I’ll try to do better than this the next time I write - so far now -
   God bless you.
             Your son and brother,  
                    Donald
   I hope that a “little bitty” letter makes you feel a little better than none at all.

Note: Alfred and Grace Carver’s Golden (50th) Wedding Anniversary was October 13, 1945

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October 1, 1945
Ft. Dix, N.J.

Dear Family,
    It’s quite possible that I’ll hear from you at noon today so I expect the smart thing to do would be to wait until after that to mail this. This letter certainly doesn’t fit into my usual weekly schedule of writing but maybe you won't mind too bad. If you remember on Tuesday of last week, I was off during the day but worked at night. Well that particular part of the week's work comes today this week. I don’t especially like the idea of working till 2AM or so tonight and then during the day tomorrow but there are a lot of things that could be worse. I had all intentions of getting started on this letter last night but I was just a little extra tired and didn’t. I suppose mostly, because I know that I could do it today.
    Now while I still have it on my mind I want to ask you to send me something. It seems that I’ll be wearing OD’d from now on not only for their warmth but because we are expected to dress up just a little for this work we’re doing. So I’d like to have that old pair of (blanket type, I think) OD pants that I sent home. I don’t remember for sure whether they even fit me or not but maybe I can get some use from them.
    It may be just a little ahead of time to tell you this because it may never happen but I need something to talk about anyway. This separation center is just about turning out its capacity of men by working clear around the clock. So in order to discharge more men. I understand they are going to open up another separation center here on this post. No doubt it’ll be part of the same organization but it will be a whole new unit. And in order to get that one started smoothly, they are going to get replacements for some of the personnel working here and send a nucleus for the crew over there from the people that have been doing the job here. You guessed it, I was told the other day that I’d probably have to go over there to organize the part of the work that our little unit does (briefly: assembling the records as they come to the counseling section, sending them to the right places, and keeping a record of what happens to them). I don’t see that there will be any difference in whether I stay or go over there.
    I haven’t heard from what you think about my sending money to get Grandpa and Grandma something for their anniversary. If I don’t hear from you today, here's what I’m going to do. I’ve already promised to send you four dollars for my regimental book, if it ever comes. So that from a ten dollar bill leaves six for something for their anniversary. Perhaps the flower idea wasn’t so good and I would be just as happy or happier at something else. You know better about what they could use and would like thanI do. I’ve never done that much for Christmas or anything else since I’ve been away but I feel that this is pretty special. Perhaps there is something that the whole family wants to get and this could just be used as my share - do as you see best. I’m going to send a little note that you can put with whatever you get if it seems appropriate. If it doesn’t fit the occasion just forget about using it.
    I hope that everything is OK at home. When I woke up yesterday morning the weather had turned so cool that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see frost. So it really seems like Fall now. I suppose you changed back to Standard Time yesterday morning too.
Be good and take care of yourselves.
               Love, 
                  Donald
    I certainly would have spent more than six dollars for a ticket if it were possible to get home for their anniversary.

Dear Grandparents,
    May this carry my best wishes to you on your Golden Wedding Anniversary. If it were at all possible for me to be there, I would certainly not miss this occasion. I have looked forward to this almost ever since I can remember and I know that you have for a lot longer period. I hope that in a small way this will partly make up for my absence. May God bless you.
                    Your Grandson,  
                                Donald

Friday Afternoon

Dear Family,
    Well I haven’t done at all bad in hearing from you since I wrote last. On Wednesday I got your roll of Sunday School papers. Yesterday I got three old letters that you had sent down to Ft. Benning and also your letter mailed on the 24th. Then at noon today your letter come that had been written on Tuesday. So I think that right now I’ll stop writing and look over all my mail to see if there was anything in that I wanted to talk to you about. 
    I see there wasn’t a whole lot that I wanted to talk about in the letters but don’t think that this means I wasn’t glad to get them. It’s good to hear that Gene Ludlow got to come home. I hope some of you get to talk to him a little so I can hear more from him. How much of a furlough does he have?
    I want to thank Mother for being thoughtful enough to send the sox along with my cap (they haven’t got here yet but I’ll let you know when they do). One of these days , maybe five or six months from now I’m going to quit wearing khaki sox so I’d better get some use from them while I can. About the box of cookies: you know that I’m not starving but I can always find use for things like that. I don’t think you need to send me the Readers’ Digests because I usually have pretty good luck getting them and I expect I have them read almost as soon as you do. The old letters also helped me to see a few of the in-between steps in the garage work. It doesn’t seem quite so much now like you went from the laying of the coal house floor to building of the stairway.
    Perhaps before I go any further I’d better tell you why I happen to be writing a letter this afternoon. If you remember my day off last week came on Saturday and since we work 5 days and are off one, it comes on Friday this time. And that happens to be today. This makes us get just a little better than one day off a week but still I don’t like to consider this my Sunday. Things have settled down to a pretty routine schedule now and this has turned out to be a pretty good job. 
    I don’t think I’ve enough to say to start another page so so long for now and God Bless you,
              Donald

Sept 25, 1945
9:30AM

Hello Folks,
    Instead of writing on Tuesday night as I generally do, it'll have to be during the day this time. I don’t know whether I’ll wait till tomorrow morning to mail it so that it will get home at the regular time or not. I don’t have to work today but I work tonight and then tomorrow as usual so I’’m really not getting any time off. It’s the fellows getting their days off that messes up the situation this way. I think it works so that I have to work a night and then the next day about once a week. If I get some sleep this afternoon that I’d ordinarily get tonight, I should make out OK.
    In the mail yesterday I received my shoes (Thanks a lot) and the letter you (Dad) had mail on Saturday. That was pretty good time, I thought, for the letter. I also go a letter apiece from Uncle Paul s and Uncle Floys.
    As I’ve said before, every time I hear about the garage there is some big change made. I heard that you were buying lumber for the stairway and then the next thing I hear is that it is all built. You seem to be doing pretty good to me. I’d like to hear a little more about where the stairway runs and how it’s built. You didn’t make one that folds at the bottom as was suggested once, did you? I wonder if the floor of the loft has been put in yet. I’d like to be home some Saturday and maybe if we had the gravel screened ahead of time, by putting in a good long day we could get the floor laid. I also wonder if you put in any windows to make light for the upstairs.
    I’m sure glad to get a good report from school. I sort of hated to think about Mother working down there as one of the cooks but maybe that’s over by this time. I know without a doubt that before long that job would get pretty old. I wonder if “big Jim” plays on your softball team that got off to such a good start last week. How is “Baby Sue” making out? Does she do very much stuttering or is she too busy for that?
    Well I think I’ll put some clothes on now and wash up a little bit for dinner. I slept through breakfast just because I didn’t have to get up but I think maybe I’d better eat something at noon. Of course, you realize that no one saves breakfast for me when I sleep over here. When I was home, I should have had to wait till noon when I got up so late. I sure was given a chance to recuperate on my recuperation furlough.     
    Well that’s just about all I know now to write about. Don’t work too hard.
    God bless you all.
            Love,                                           
              Donald

Now at the Fort Dix Separation Center in Trenton NJ. Three empty envelopes prior to this letter, return address Fort Dix, postmarked September 17, September 17, and September 21.

Photo of the “O.D” (olive drab) cap he mentions

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Saturday Afternoon

Dear Family,
    For this once my weekend letter will have to be written on Saturday instead of Sunday. If you remember, I told you that today was to be my day off so it stands to reason that I’ll be able to write more of a letter today than tomorrow.
    It’s nice to get a day off whenever it comes but, of course, I’d rather it be on a Sunday if I had my choice. I don’t like to have to miss church.
    Well I’ve finally started getting a little mail. Yesterday I received a letter from you guys and today one from Richard . Just to get some mail helps out on the morale situation a lot. I hope those first few letters I sent didn’t worry you too bad. I did work pretty hard the first day or so and of course everything was new and got just a little discouraged. Working day and night didn’t help either but we oughtn’t have that happen too often from now on.
    I guess if I’m ever going to get caught up on the sleep I lost, I should have done it this morning. It must’ve been about 9 o’clock or before when I went to bed last night and didn’t get up till eleven thirty this morning. If nothing too bad happens by the time I’ve been here another week, I should be almost beginning to like the place.
    Perhaps it’s true that if I were watching the progress of the garage work it would not seem very fast but every time I’ve heard about it so far there have been a good many changes made. The last time I heard from it you’d just put in the coal house floor. And now the bin is finished enough to put the coal in and you’re ready to start on the stairway. I wonder if you had room to get your Ind. (Ill.) coal in off the driveway or will that have to be moved somewhere else?
    I guess Marvin’s slowness finally caught up with him on the teacher situation. It hadn’t been settled permanently in the letter I got but if he finally got a teacher it would be a miracle.  
    How much honey did you have this time? I expect it was pretty short for a honey crop but maybe it’ll be enough to make some to use at home anyway.
    Well I’ve got some clothes to take to the cleaners and they close pretty early so maybe I’d better sign off and get that done. I’ll try to write a little more before evening.

Later
    I almost missed the little poem that Mary put into the letter but I got a good laugh from it when I finally discovered it on the back of the page.
    I hope that Mother didn’t have to spend too long at the cooking job down at school. That’s almost as bad as doing KP and that can get to be quite some job. I know.
    We can wear our OD’s now and after Oct. 1 we’ll be wearing them altogether. I am wondering about an OD cap I used to have. I don’t remember seeing it on my furlough but I’m almost certain I sent it home. It looks like I’ll be wearing GI clothes for quite a while yet so I’d like to have it if it’s still around. It’s almost black in color and I think it has some sort of a lining. Let me know if it’s not there and if it is, how about sending it.
    Well I hope to hear from you again soon. Be good and don’t work too hard.
              Your son and brother,  
                        Donald