This an interesting letter. Here Theo outlines his travels in France. Something he was not able to do when his mail was censored.
TLt
Olingen Luxemburg
Jan 15 – 1919
Dear Mabel;
Received your letter of Dec 20th yesterday and was sorry to hear Anna was feeling so badly. I hope she is well again and able to work. It was raining this morning so we did not go out and drill so I have been writing letters. This is the fifth one. I received a program of the Xmas doings at the Chapel from Mr. Searles and a New Years card from the Chapel sent by Alfred Erickson.
The fellow in Co. ‘G’ was right when he said that we went over on the Mount Vernon because that is the boat. It used to belong to German company but the Gov’t took it and made a transport out of it. It was so crowded we had to sleep in two shifts. One bunch during the night and another during the day. I was lucky enough to be in the night shift. We had five sittings for meals, 1000 men at a sitting. I happened to be in the first sitting. We only had two meals a day and at noon we got two sandwiches. We did not get much to eat at that.
We arrived in the harbor at Brest on May 23 and had to stay on board the ship for three days before we could get off. There was about 60,000 troops in the harbor waiting to get off. We could not get off at the docks so they had to take us off in lighters and that was slow work. We camped near Brest for three days and left on Decoration Day. We rode on boxcars for a couple of days and got off at a town called Oisemont. We stayed there all night and marched to a place called Eaucourt the next day. It was a real warm day and we had to wear our overcoats and carry a full pack on our back so you can imagine how we sweat. We stayed in this town for a couple of weeks and then we had to walk for two days to place called Gamaches and the camp was on a high hill. After we stayed there for a while we took auto trucks and rode to a place called Molliens aux Bois and there we camped on another hill. The camp was in the woods and it was always muddy because it rained so much and the sun could not get at the mud enough to make it dry. We stayed here for several weeks making several trips to the trenches while there. When we left here we went to Guerre Woods and stayed there for one night and then we went to the trenches for about five days and from there we went to town called Camon. We stayed for a few days when we left the British front for the American front. We took boxcars again an we passed through the outskirts of Paris and we stopped at a small place called Culey not very far from Bar le Duc. We stayed for two weeks when we went to the trenches near Verdun where we stayed until we went over the top on the 26th of Sept. The company has traveled some while I was in the hospital. When they came to this place they had to walk 150 kilometers and a good many of them have had bum feet ever since. We have been here for two weeks so I suppose it is about time for us to move pretty soon.
Well it is soon time to fall in for our afternoon stint. I suppose they will take us on a hike if it is not raining too hard. I hope you are all well when this letter reaches you. I am feeling fine and my mouth is getting better every day.
Love to all
Theo
(Received 2/19/1919)
