A letter from the past.

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Found in storage locker. Believed to be WWII vintage and was addressed to a PO box in Cramerton.
See if you can decipher it.
Yes, it's in English. Kind of.

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This could make for an interesting thread topic. “Letters from the past”

I’ve got a letter written by my grandmother on her honeymoon in 1918 the night before my grandad headed out to Ft. Jackson to deploy to Belgium for WWI.

It was addressed to her grandmother-in-law (grandad’s grandmother) whose oldest brother was a Colonel in the CSA, and whose post-war home I pass coming back from pistol matches in Clinton NC.

Lotta family history in that one letter.
 
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** ** *** am sure agreed and she sure do *** * ***** * **** but she am very poor in ***** she need alot of rations to make her ******* * well ride her some ****** and **** and see she **** all **** good she will do your children some good
 
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Your is corn running low. Jin likes it a lot but shes in very poor health and needs a lot of food to get better. Give her some clover and bran and see that she chews it well so she'll do your children some good.
 
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ve got a letter written by my grandmother on her honeymoon in 1918 the night before my grandad headed out to Ft. Jackson to deploy to Belgium for WWI.
I don't know where it is currently, but my mother had a journal from her grandfather from WW2 and the Great Depression. I think it also had some letters from her uncle who was what they called an ambulance in that he got to go pick up the dead from the battle field (which unfortunately changed him in a bad way).
 
That is tough to read. When I saw Cramerton I had hoped it might have been a bit more legible. My grandmother grew up there and I had a great uncle who was on an LST in the Pacific during the last year or so of the war. He was off Okinawa when the kamikaze attacks started. I wish I had been smart enough at ten to write some of the things down he told me. I'll have to ask my cousin if she has any of his letters or a journal.

I have a scrapbook from the late 1910's and early 20's that covers the great, great uncle I was named for. His fiance' sent it to my grandfather who the first one named for him. He died after his plane came apart over France in 1918. He had a mechanical issue and set down in a field and after supposedly fixing that and taking off again it fell apart. I think I may have some letters as well.

I don't know if my grandfather kept anything from World War II, he was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and spent five months in captivity. He did write a letter later to Major Abe Baum who commanded the task force sent to break General Patton's son in law out of Oflag XIII B. There's a book on it that Major Baum helped write called 'Raid! The Untold Story of Patton's Secret Mission.'. In the letter he stated that he had ridden out of the camp on a tank with a fellow graduate of N.C. State and family friend from Raleigh who had also been a prisoner. He was one of a small group who volunteered to fight with the task force and they were assigned to help the infantry in the half tracks. They were surrounded and cut off the next day and he spent another month in captivity. There's a lot more to the letter and it reads like a crazy adventure story but my grandfather never bragged and he never talked about it until the Christmas of 1989 when we had two feet of snow on the ground here and the temperature was below zero. I have to assume it reminded him of the Ardennes and that bitter winter.

Sorry for the long winded post. I'll try to find the letters I have. This stuff has always fascinated me.
 
The oldest letter we have is Nov 14, 1897. Lots from WWII and Vietnam. Wife is currently scanning them. I've been scanning pictures. It's a chore. They wrote phonetically and wherever they had room. Got one with part written upside down. I'll save you the other 3 pages.



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The oldest letter we have is Nov 14, 1897. Lots from WWII and Vietnam. Wife is currently scanning them. I've been scanning pictures. It's a chore. They wrote phonetically and wherever they had room. Got one with part written upside down. I'll save you the other 3 pages.
All the more reason to make sure that kids can read cursive, which is no longer being taught. Hmm, lots of old documents they won't be able to read.
 
My grandfather was in the 35th Tank Battalion in Patton's 4th Armored Division in Europe and after he passed we were cleaning out his house and on a top shelf way back in the back of a closet I found a box that had probably been there since they moved into the house in 1948. Once I got all the dust and debris off of it and opened it up, it contained all of the letters, telegraphs, etc. that he had sent to the family and everything they had sent him. It had all of his draft information and discharge paperwork and different arm patches from the war.

I went through all of them and put them in chronological order and filled up 5 plastic picture boxes. I hope to one day be able to go through and read all of them, but the handwriting and spelling are very different from today making them had to read. My aunt wanted to throw the "junk" away, but I took them and will keep them to pass down to my children who grew up and were very close to their great grandfather. My oldest son has all of his military medals including his purple heart and my younger son has his dress uniform and patches. My oldest son when he was in college, had the 4th Armored Division tattooed on his back with my grandfathers initials under it.
 
** ** *** am sure agreed and she sure do *** * ***** * **** but she am very poor in ***** she need alot of rations to make her ******* * well ride her some ****** and **** and see she **** all **** good she will do your children some good

You are getting most of what I am and missing most of what I am. If there are other letters you can sometimes piece together the words or letters you can't figure out. If you can find it in better context somewhere else. Not a lot of grammar police back then.


All the more reason to make sure that kids can read cursive, which is no longer being taught. Hmm, lots of old documents they won't be able to read.

My youngest does really well translating ours. Young eyes help too.
 
All the more reason to make sure that kids can read cursive, which is no longer being taught. Hmm, lots of old documents they won't be able to read.

Ah, yes, cursive. That writing style that was taught for an entire 4 month period, after which students were told to never use it again on any reports or papers.

I was shuffling different school systems during that time and somehow never learned it. It was easy enough to figure out how to read, but I have never written a single letter in cursive. I compensated my signature by just making a hump, a squiggly line, and a tail.

I look forward to it being as dead as shorthand or Wingdings.
 
Balderdash and poppycock! I know for a fact you speak fluent Wing Ding.
 
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