World War One Letters: Watson

MMS1851 WEW 103-105

World War I in TEI
Bowling Green State University MMS1851 WEW 103-105

TEI Letters

2015 Mathew Sweet Created the initial version of the article
2015-06-01 Mathew Sweet Converted to TEI
2016-09-07 Mathew Sweet Combined pages
Wendell Emmons Watson Somewhere in France September 5th 1918 Watson family
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Somewhere in France
Sep. 5, 1918

To my Dear Ones at Home,


It has been quite a while since I
have written, a whole lot longer than
I like to wait to hear from you. The
circumstances will not always per-
mit us to be as prompt as we like.
I hope that I am not transferred
many times. It takes a long time
for your mail to follow you up.
I wish you would send The Signal.
Other boys in this company are getting
home papers right along. I geussguess
that sweater would come handy
by the time it arrived now. My
safety razor is the only thing I got
that I had when I left Camp Sherman.
I parted with a number a number of small articles ^that I was going to keep when I got separated
from my pack in a region where
battle field sights and sounds made
it very uncomfortable. Maybe I can
tell you more about it some daysomeday.
I suppose Don is writing back

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II

by this time. If he is like the
most of us his desire for traveling
will soon fade before the desire of
getting back home. To say how many
miles wide the pond is don't tell the
tale. You got to ride across it to
know, or you got to feel it to know it.
I am still feeling good
and I might say fairly fat but not
excessive. We get plenty of chuck
but there is a taste of tin cans
about it that a new man in
the army doesn't notice at first.
I have seen or heard nothing
of the home boys except Julian
who is still with me. How is
Grant Knepley coming with the draft?
This ought to be the week of the big
Napoleon Fair. I wish we could sit
down to one of those fried chicken lunches
that come to the fair. I saw a few
muskmelon since I been over
here but I haven't tasted any.

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III

I don't think this is much of a place
for melons. They think more of grape
vines. How is Dave's beet venture
coming out? He ought to make a
forecast by now.
Gale ought to be able to get a cotton
tail once in a while now. I have
seen a couple over here. They have
a few pheasants here too. There is
a kind of dove here that would make
four of the United States kind. What
about Glen Shuler? We have put in
some pretty stiff hikes lately. I am
glad my shoes were a good fit. I just
got a bunch of sweets from the Y.M.C.AYoung Men's Christian Association
and they certainly tasted fine. This
end of my letter is two days older
than the front end. I expect to take
a little swim to-daytoday and that will
be another treat. Well I will say
"good bye". Yours "with the all kinds
of Hope"

Wendell
SeptSeptember 7.
[Censor's "OK" and signature written overtop]