Dec 19, 2013

Sun, Dec 19, 1943: out of trouble

"As I previously mentioned, we spent the weekend at home to keep from catching the 'flu.'  To keep us busy (and out of trouble) during that time they required each man to wash the walls of his room and wax the floor.  Clarence and I were hard at work on this assignment about the time Frank Sinatra and 'Your Hit Parade' came on last night."
-- Letter from my father, Cape Girardeau, Mo., to his family, Bloomington, Kans., Sunday, December 19, 1943.   My father was home on leave from about December 24 to January 2; so this was his last letter home in 1943.  His family kept all of his letters and numbered them, in part so he could have a record of his Navy years.  They numbered this last letter of the year "44."  (They actually had missed counting at least one letter.) So, on average, he was writing home 7 times a month, not counting postcards and not counting all the letters he wrote to friends and family members outside his immediate family.  He typically wrote home every Sunday and Wednesday.  He continued writing letters on Sunday throughout his life.

No comments:

Post a Comment