Letter from the front

Mom has been busy archiving family history for a a while now, and on Memorial Day she shared the following letter written by her father, Will Ed McClendon, who fought in World War I.

The war had ended 5 weeks earlier, and he was staying on in Europe as a translator for prisoners. With the fighting over, censors were allowing more details (like city names) to go out in soldiers' letters, but he still held back because he didn't want to worry his mother Sallie.

In this letter, he refers to a first trip to the hospital when he'd gotten influenza. He was rescued by his close friend Ollie when the medics thought he was dead.

Dec. 18, 1919 from Souilly, France.

Dear Folks:

Am again in Souilly — about eighteen kilo-meters from Verdun. No doubt my saying "again" will surprise you, but when I was here before, I was prohibited to use names of places. The first time I only stopped overnight, on the way to the Hospital; also may be here only one night this time, as we are expecting to hike to Verdun tomorrow. The last time I was in this part of the country we spent about two weeks just across the Neuse River in what was once the town of Consenvoys. As that was less than two miles from the front lines, we had a very, very interesting time. Have never been in Verdun, but if we go there, will write you something about the place. Most every little town in this sector has a history as well as a graveyard attached to it.

Our Company was relieved from service on the front Oct. 27th and moved back to Bethaucourt. On the same day, I was started diagonally across France to the Hospital at Bordeaux. Have not heard of them since, nor had any word from home. Also, my service record failed to follow me. So you see I’m in tough luck for getting sick. Still, am hoping it will come my turn to go home before long, especially as I have had about enough of adventure and sight-seeing.

Also, I hope my mail will show up so there will be something to answer when I write you. Sleep well and cheerful and maybe I can be with you before the Winter months are over.

With lots of love

From

Will Ed

Poker? I'm related to her!

Sis kicked ass at the World Series of Poker last week -- $29,883 in winnings and 467th place out of 6,358 players. Apparently there's a picture of her in action floating around out there, and I'll post it when I find it.

2:28 p.m. update: Found the picture. Not the best quality, but you get the idea.

My Dearest Daughter

"My Dearest Daughter" is how I started a letter that I recently wrote to Sophie. I was sitting in a 3-hour work meeting with representatives from my company and Yahoo, and it occurred to me that this was a total waste of my time. Instead, I wanted to send a message to my future daughter, the one who will someday be 5 or even 15 years old.

So I grabbed the Yahoo-provided pen and paper and started to write. Eight unreadable pages of script later, I looked up and realized I hadn't missed anything important for work. But I had produced something that I hope she'll find important someday. This is one sample paragraph:

You don’t know it yet, but your mom and I are very verbal people. I don’t mean that we talk a lot, but that we would be lost without the ability to talk to each other. We make puns, discuss the meanings of words and actually are interested in where words come from. Every time you use a new word, or put words together in a new way, we notice it, and it makes us smile. Lately, you’ve been saying “I Sophie” as in, “I Sophie did it!” We don’t know where you learned that, but we think it sounds great.

I'm still not sure how I'm going to pass this letter on to her. I supposed I'll stick it in the bank box, but there has to be a more 21st century way to make sure it doesn't become forgotten. I suppose just writing this will ensure that Google picks it up, so all future Sophie has to do is search for "Sophie Stohler" or "Sophie Claire SiTian Stohler" and she'll find this entry. Then she just has to remember to ask her feeble dad where the hell he put that letter.

Note to self: It's in the safe deposit box. Or the attic. I can't remember.

Doomed to repeat it

Mom has started a great project where she pulls out every old family photo, letter, postcard, etc. and scans it. The whole thing is just getting started, but it's already uncovering some gems.

This one is from 1974, which is a shockingly long time ago. But it's also perfect timing since the towhead in this photo is almost the same age as the little monkey we now have running around and hanging from things.