TRANSCRIBED FROM THE GRAND PRAIRIE NEWS NOVEMBER 7, 1918 P. 3
Somewhere in France
September 20, 1918.
Dear Cousin:
I thought I would drop you a few lines to let you know I got the two letters you wrote to Camp Beauregard. They were sent on from there. I sure was glad to get them, too, the first mail in two months.
It has rained for three weeks straight over here, and the mud is a foot deep in some places. There is one good thing about France, the roads are nearly all paved from one town to another and they don’t get very bad. I wish you could see it. It is good to look at as long as you see something new all the time, but when you stay three or four weeks in one place, it gets old.
The place I’m where I’m staying now, is owned by an old lady, who thinks that the band boys are “just it,” and every time one of the boys gets sick or even coughs in the night, she gets up and comes out to see what is the matter, and brings some rum and teas, hot brandy or something. She sure is good; sews all our clothes and does everything.
It is awfully hard to write on a baritone case, with an old straight pen. I have lost my fountain pen which makes two I have lost in the last three months.
We got paid off for two months, Sunday, and you should see the boys shoot craps and count this French money.
I have been trying for the last two months to learn French, and am no farther along now than I was before I left the states.
The band went to play a concert for the General the other Sunday. We went to the place in a truck. Some swell place too. An old castle, placed back in the forest, and some swell furnishings. I saw a chandelier in there, that cost $2,000, all the colors you could imagine; also, counterpanes of Japanese silk, all colors, and the most beautiful designs. All furniture far better than I ever saw before. Just out from the castle, about a mile, is an old stone, about twenty five feet high, and there is light running into it from all directions. These little roads lead out to the main road in all different ways, and are arched over with trees; some of them are a mile long, and you can see the other end through the arch. It was the old meeting place of the old hunters, and the stone dates back 400 years.
Well, as I am limited to a small space and a bad place to write, must close.
Harry E. Baker.
NOTES: Harry Edward Baker was born on January 29, 1896 in Hermitage, Missouri and died February 17, 1961. He is buried in the Lone Tree Cemetery in Stuttgart, Arkansas. He enlisted on July 7, 1917 and was discharged on August 19, 1919. He served in the US Army, Hdqs. Co., 17th Field Artillery, 2nd Division. He was writing to his cousin, Miss Bertha Taylor
TRANSCRIBED BY SHANNON SOUTHARD
Somewhere in France
September 20, 1918.
Dear Cousin:
I thought I would drop you a few lines to let you know I got the two letters you wrote to Camp Beauregard. They were sent on from there. I sure was glad to get them, too, the first mail in two months.
It has rained for three weeks straight over here, and the mud is a foot deep in some places. There is one good thing about France, the roads are nearly all paved from one town to another and they don’t get very bad. I wish you could see it. It is good to look at as long as you see something new all the time, but when you stay three or four weeks in one place, it gets old.
The place I’m where I’m staying now, is owned by an old lady, who thinks that the band boys are “just it,” and every time one of the boys gets sick or even coughs in the night, she gets up and comes out to see what is the matter, and brings some rum and teas, hot brandy or something. She sure is good; sews all our clothes and does everything.
It is awfully hard to write on a baritone case, with an old straight pen. I have lost my fountain pen which makes two I have lost in the last three months.
We got paid off for two months, Sunday, and you should see the boys shoot craps and count this French money.
I have been trying for the last two months to learn French, and am no farther along now than I was before I left the states.
The band went to play a concert for the General the other Sunday. We went to the place in a truck. Some swell place too. An old castle, placed back in the forest, and some swell furnishings. I saw a chandelier in there, that cost $2,000, all the colors you could imagine; also, counterpanes of Japanese silk, all colors, and the most beautiful designs. All furniture far better than I ever saw before. Just out from the castle, about a mile, is an old stone, about twenty five feet high, and there is light running into it from all directions. These little roads lead out to the main road in all different ways, and are arched over with trees; some of them are a mile long, and you can see the other end through the arch. It was the old meeting place of the old hunters, and the stone dates back 400 years.
Well, as I am limited to a small space and a bad place to write, must close.
Harry E. Baker.
NOTES: Harry Edward Baker was born on January 29, 1896 in Hermitage, Missouri and died February 17, 1961. He is buried in the Lone Tree Cemetery in Stuttgart, Arkansas. He enlisted on July 7, 1917 and was discharged on August 19, 1919. He served in the US Army, Hdqs. Co., 17th Field Artillery, 2nd Division. He was writing to his cousin, Miss Bertha Taylor
TRANSCRIBED BY SHANNON SOUTHARD