"Dearest DeVere:- To-day Daddy is fifty years old. That doesn't seem so old as it sounded thirty years ago. Time just gradually changes things as you grow older and you scarcely notice just how or when they change...
"How is school coming along? I had to give Harold Wagone a spanking again to-day. He wouldn't do his work and had gradually been getting worse and worse since Christmas until to-day in one and one-half hours he had written only two lines. After the paddling he did three times as much in ten minutes."
-- Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Cape Girardeau, Mo., Wednesday, January 19, 1944. My grandmother is referring to her work as a teacher at Bloomington School. Three days after this letter was written, allied forces landed at Anzio Beach south of Rome. They held the beachhead, but met stiff German resistance and were unable to move much beyond the shore. It would take over a year for allied forces to clear Italy of German forces. My father’s friend, Jack Seal, fought and was wounded at Anzio. (Source: William L. O’Neill, A Democracy at War, 188)
No comments:
Post a Comment