Note:  On today's blog I decided to post an image of one of the actual letters.  They are written in pencil so they are not to legible.  On the back of this letter is the notation "Rcvd July 7, 1918.  thus, it took about three and a half weeks to arrive in Chicago.

TLT

#5

France June 13 – 1918

 

 

Dear Mother:

 

            We received our mail at last.  I received Mabel’s and Anna’s letter of may 9 – 13 – 14 – 15 – 16.   Also received some other letters.  I expect we will receive our mail a good deal more regular after this. 

 

We are at another camp now.  We had to march twenty miles with all our stuff.  We were two days on the road.  We went twelve miles the first day and eight miles the second day.  At the end of the march we had to climb a large hill where our camp was located.

 

            We are near a large sized town (Gamaches) but it is some job climbing up the hill when we return to camp.  We were on a hike today to the rifle range.

 

            I receive a letter from John Dahl telling me that he had been in the hospital for about six weeks. 

 

            There is one thing lacking in this town and that is a movie theater.  I have not seen a movie since we were at Camp Upton.

 

            I am glad to hear that you received the insurance policy.  It was a long time coming but I suppose they had so many to make out that it took quite a while.

 

            Last night we had a band concert by a British Band.

 

            I am pretty sure Enoch Hansen is over here some place so I think I will write him a letter.

 

            I am feeling fine and I hope you are also.  This life seems to agree with me as I am just as fat as ever.

 

            Well there is nothing more that I can write so I will close with

 

                                                                        Love to all

                                                                                    Theo

 

#4                                                                                                            Somewhere in France

                                                                                                                        June 9 –1918

 

Dear Mother:

 

            This is my third Sunday in France and believe me it certainly looks like Sunday as everything is nice and quiet.  If I was in Chicago I suppose I would be over at the park looking at a ball game.  Everything is lovely here and I am in the best of health.  The weather is fine and there is just enough breeze blowing to keep it from being to[o] warm.

 

            We were on a hike yesterday afternoon for about three and a half hours.  We passed through about five small towns.  It would have been fine and dandy if it was not for the hills but I suppose we will get used to them in time.

 

Has Mabel got all of her garden planted yet?  I wish you could see all of the gardens they have here and the way things grow.  While we were on the train we could see strawberries growing along the railroad track.

 

Since I have been here I have seen very few wagons that have four wheels, most of them have two wheels.  The horses and cows are all very large.  I have never seen such nice cattle as I have seen here.

 

I have not received any mail yet but I think we will get it pretty soon.  I do not know what is going on in the world as I very seldom see a paper.  Things are very quiet here and I have not heard any shooting for two or three days.

 

            I hope everybody is well at home.  I suppose that Mabel is still working down at the N.W.Y. Co. (Northwestern Yeast Company) yet.

 

I wish I could think of more to write about but as there is nothing going on it is pretty hard.

 

                                                            Love to all

                                                                        Theo

 

PS. Tell Anna the reason she has not receive any letters is because I have no more envelopes addressed to her and she will have to wait until I get a chance to buy some.

 

                                                                        Theo

 

#3                                                                                    Somewhere in France

                                                                                                June 6-1918

 

Dear Mother:

 

            Just a few lines to let you know that I am as well as I can be.  We are having fine weather and as we are outside most of the time we are bound to be healthy.

 

We have daylight until 10 o’clock at night.  There is only one trouble here and that is that they have no candy or anything like [that] to sell in this town.  The town we are in now is very small and has only one or two stores.

 

This afternoon we marched about two or three miles to another town where there was a small stream.  We took a bath and washed our clothes.  I do not think we got very clean as the water was pretty dirty.  It was the first chance we have had to take a bath in over a week.  We do not have the bathing facilities here that we had at Camp Logan.

 

We have not received any mail as yet but I think we will get it in a few days.  I also think we will be paid pretty soon.

 

            Things are very quiet here, a person would not think there was any war in this country at all.  I do not know how things are outside of this camp as I have not seen a paper for some time.

 

I hope you are all well at home and write as often as you can because news is very scarce here.  Well this is all I can think of right now so I will close with

 

                                                                        Love to all

                                                                                    Theo            

Note:  This letter was probably written from a training site at Eaucourt, NE of Amiens.  The division is still be trained by British and Australian officers.

#2                                                                                    Somewhere in France

 

Dear Mabel:

 

            We arrived here after a 36 hour ride on the train and a hike of about nine mile[s].  We are billeted in a small town.  We are sleeping in old barns.  The look as if they were about a hundred years old.

 

            This is certainly beautiful country and everything is kept nice and neat.  I was always under the impression that France was a crowded country but there is an awful lot of open country and pretty near all of it is cultivated.  You talk about prices being high in the U.S. but you ought to be here and pay 90¢ for a can of peaches.

 

            At the last camp we were at, we bought fresh strawberries and they were the largest and sweetest I ever ate in my life.  I paid 20¢ for a whole hat full.

 

            I am feeling fine and will do my best to stay that way.  Where we are now we can hear the roar of the cannon.

 

            How did the people of Chicago spend decoration day.  We were riding on train pretty near all day.

 

            I do not know what to write about because we have to be very careful what we write.

 

            I have not received any mail since we left New York.  When you address my mail be sure to write American E.F. because there is another army over [here] with the same initials.

 

            We had fine weather since we arrived, it has not rained a bit.  It is rather damp at night on account of the heavy dew.

 

            I did not make any allotment because if I want to buy anything extra it cost so much that I may need the money.

 

            I hope you are all keeping well.  I suppose you have your garden planted by this time.  Wherever you go here you see gardens and everything seems to be growing fine.

 

Well this is all I can think of now.

 

                                                            Love to all

                                                                        Theo

 

P.S. This letter #2.  Please some newspaper

just the part with the news in it.

 

 

Note:  This letter was probably written from Eaucourt near Amiens.  The regiment traveled from Brest in freight cars called ‘40 and 8’s’ – they could carry forty men or eight horses.  They detrained at Oisement and marched to their training area at Eaucourt.  The division is now on the British front and will be receiving further training under British and Australian officers.  (From The History of the Thirty-Third Division, A.E.F. Frederic L. Huidekoper, Springfield Il; IL State Hist. Lib. 1921, Vol III)

 

There was a question posted about censorship.  During hostilities it is common practice to impose censorship on outgoing correspondence.  Soldiers could not reveal their locations or other information that might be helpful to the enemy.  Apparently Theo was very careful abut this because none of the letters showed any information deleted by the censors.

 

TLT

#1

 

 

Dear Mother:

 

            We are camped somewhere in France.  We arrived at camp yesterday after a hike of three miles.  It was uphill almost all of the way and the roads were pretty rough. 

 

            Everything in this country looks to be about a hundred years old.  I do not think they have built any new house here in the last fifty years.  All of the houses are built of brick.

 

            We took a hike this afternoon to a small town nearby.  All you see is old men, women and children.  There are very few young men to be seen.  The women are doing most of the farm work.

 

            The people look to be very healthy as pretty near every one has a nice rosy complexion.  I guess pretty [much] every one drinks wine here, as the water is not very good.

 

            The cost of chocolate bars and cookies are a good deal higher than at home.  A chocolate bar that costs about 10 cents in Chicago is worth 25 cents here.

 

We had fine weather coming across so I did not get sick.  I did not see very many who were sick on board.  The first day out we saw a number of sharks alongside the ship.

 

            We did not see any U-boats at all.  About all I did was read books.  The Y.M.C.A had about 3000 books on board the ship and I must have read about a dozen of them.

 

Where we are you would not think there was any war at all.  I cannot write as much as I would like because there are a lot of things I think we are not allowed to mention.  Do not send any packages because the post office will not take anything with out special permission.

 

            Give my love to all.

 

                                                                        Your loving son

                                                                                    Theo

 

P.S.     My address is

                        Sergt. T.F. Thourson #1,390,312

                        Co. A. 132^nd Inf. AEF

                        Via New York

 

 

Note:  This is the first letter from France and is not dated. The date of 5/27/18 is estimated based on narrative the in The Story of the Thirty-Third Division.  It was probably written from a camp near Brest where they debarked.

As of this date, May 21, 1918, the 132nd Infantry Regiment is aboard the Mount Vernon. (This was the German liner Kronprincezzin Cecelie seized by the US and converted to a troop transport.) Also on board is Major General George Bell, Jr., commander of th 33rd Division, and his headquarters.  They are traveling in a convoy escorted by warships of the British and American Navies. There are 5,000 soldiers on board.  “It was so crowded we had to sleep in two shifts. ... I was lucky enough to be in the night shift,”  Theo wrote later when censorship was lifted. On board they had two meals per day in five sittings for each meal.  There did not seem to be much activity aboard ship.  Theo says, “...all I did was read books.”  

TLT