“W.
Geog.... E
Steno....
E
Span....
E
Chem.... E
Econ... E
Spelling...
E+.”
--My
mother’s report card for the fall semester of
her senior year at El Dorado High School, 1943-1944. Since I have no letters from her in this time
period, I’ve included one of the few documents I have from her. Possible grades were “E—Excellent; G—Good; M—Medium;
P—Passing; F—Failing.”
"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)
"I'll
take this occasion to wish you a happy birthday, Dad, since I notice that the
19th is this week. Fifty sounds old,
but, unlike most men of that age, you look and act like a comparatively young
man -- no white hair, bald head, etc. A
half century is a long time and 50 candles on the birthday cake should provide
enough light to dispense with the expense of electric lights for a while."
--
Letter from my father, Sidney DeVere Brown, Cape Girardeau, Mo., to my
grandfather, Leonard Reeves Brown, Bloomington, Kans., Saturday, January 15,
1944.
"Stanley tells me (with tears in his voice) to tell you that we will probably have to give away some of the puppies. He'd like so well to keep them all....
"Raymond Clark is home and has been honorably discharged because of some ailment to his back. He will probably get a job again at the White Eagle. Guess he is glad to be home."
-- Letter from my grandmother, Jessie Maybelle (Berger) Brown, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Sidney DeVere Brown, Cape Girardeau, Mo., Monday, January 10, 1944. White Eagle was an oil refinery in Augusta, Kans. My father's brother, Stanley, was 10 years old.
"The
snow outside now makes it appear that we have some cold weather in store. Is the ground still white with snow back in
Kansas? When I arrived in Cape last
Sunday all the snow had melted. Has
Stanley learned how to skate by now?"
--Letter
from my father, Cape Girardeau, Mo., to his family, Bloomington, Kans., Thursday,
January 6, 1944.
My father, age 18, with my uncle Stanley, 10, and aunt Barbara, 15, at the family farm in Bloomington. Dad was home on his second leave from the Navy training program in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in late December 1943.
"He [Stanley] worked pretty hard on a book report he has to get in at school this morning so he could go down and play on the ice this afternoon and when we were eating dinner he said something about the ice and I told him I thought it would be to soft as the sun had been shining all morning or most of the morning and he hit the table with his hand and tears came in his eyes, he was pretty disappointed about it but soon got over it."
-- Letter from my grandfather, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Cape Girardeau, Mo., Monday, December 20, 1943. Stanley was my father’s 10-year-old brother. Dinner was eaten at noontime on the farm.
"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.
"Ruby and Homer got word Jack has landed safely in North Africa. He didn't write much and what he did write was partly cut out....
"All of us went to town yesterday to do our Christmas shopping. The stores are rather empty looking and everything a person looks at seems rather cheap except when you price it, then you almost fall over."
--Letter from my grandmother, Bloomington, Kans., to my father, Cape Girardeau, Mo., Sunday, December 12, 1943. Jack Seal was one of my father's best friends from childhood. He was the only child of Homer and Ruby, who ran the community store. By this point in the war, the Allies had control of North Africa and it was a staging point for the invasion of Italy.
"Dear Stanley:
"The report you gave me on the farm livestock was very interesting. So you're a hunter now! Did you have the rabbits for dinner that you and Buzz killed? And about my cattle interests -- I think I'd better appoint you to make a count of my animals. After you mentioned the birth of a calf to my cow in the last letter. I got to thinking that perhaps I didn't really know very much about my cattle. So would you tell me how many cows and calves there are."
-- Letter from my father, Cape Girardeau, Mo., to my uncle Stanley, Bloomington, Kans., Wednesday, December 8, 1943.
