TRANSCRIBED FROM THE HOT SPRINGS NEW ERA APRIL 14, 1919 P. 3
Vicenza, March 4,
Mother Dear:
By the time this reaches you we will have left this place and be moving homeward. It appears now that we will leave Vicenza between the 15th and 20th of March sailing from from Genoa within a week or 10 days afterwards. Tappa (Medical Corps Headquarters for the Sixth Army) has been notified not to send us any more patients, and we are admitting only emergency cases and our own men. The operating room closes today, the terms of the transfer for all the equipment to the Italian government (approximately $100,000 worth) have been arranged and very little remains to be done except close all records. Only one thing might cause delay—a hurry call on Saturday afternoon for eight men, and four doctors to proceed at once to Cataro, Dalmatia, to handle an epidemic of jaundice and threatened typhus of the Second Division of the 332nd Infantry stationed here. The orders came at 3 p.m. The nurses left at 6 and the officers and men at 10:30. I’m allowing at least a full month from the time we leave Genoa for the passage and the mustering out process. Ought to be home by last of April anyway. As intimated my furlough was for five days, including travel time and I saw Rome, Florence and Padua. Isn’t it a joke to speak of seeing Rome in two days and Florence in one, when a lifetime would be too short to really see with the seeing inner eye the wonder of the real cradle of Civilization? Picture me, then, as rushing madly from one point of interest to another on my long lanky legs, figuratively hanging on with a death grip the coat tails of the guide. I managed to get a glimpse of St. Peters, the Vatican, Museaum, the Sitine Chapel, the Capitolme Hill with its modern church built on the foundations of the ancient temple of Juno, the Maritime Prison, and the Forum the Colosseum of course; the Basilica of Constantine, the baths of Caracalla (unbelievably immense), the Appian Way to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, Cecelia and another whose name escapes me, the quaint little chapel of Quo Vadis, with its legendary imprint of the Saviors foot believed to mark the exact spot where He appeared to His discouraged disciples. The Basilica of St. Paul far more stately, dignified and impressive to me than St. Peters. I saw these with the physical eye, but alas, I’m afraid very little of it will remain with me long, for the visit was such a whirlwind rush, from one little thing to another and there were many things interesting to me, which the guide passed up, and I had to miss to stick with the party. We were fortunate enough to get accompaniment on the return trip to Florence where we arrived at 4 a.m. Ditto Rome for rushing through the Pettah Gallery, the Uffizi was closed. Our guide a real sure enough American girl in civilian clothes, looked so good to us that we slighted the immortals in frames. Then we breezed through the National Museum once the home of old Cosima di Medici to whom the world of art owes so much. The Church of San Lorenzo, oh so old and quaint. Stood on the spot where Savonarola was burned. Inspected the Baptistery of St. John (14th century) and the adjoining cathedral; admired Giotto’s Tower, but my poor old rheumatic leg was not equal to the climb to the top, skipped through Palazzo Vecchio and the Loggia dei Lanzi. Oh, it is a crime to be in Rome and Florence and not see their treasures as they should be seen leisurely and understandably, but it would have been a worse one to have been (MISSING TEXT) guise of an unappreciative American tourist, for I am sufficiently endowed to appreciate a little of the glory and wonder, the divinity of these monuments of a vanished intelligence and history, to which the world having lost is slowly returning. But I am anticipating and if I once write the whole story of that trip I can never tell it again and as I want to tell you all of it, you must wait for the next installment.
Am enclosing some pictures of the Receiving Office crew in the office.
Best of love to you and all of you, and here’s hoping for a speedy return.
DON
NOTES: Donald Huntley Bancroft is writing to his mother, Mrs. E. H. Bancroft of Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was born on February 26, 1890 in Port Huron, Michigan. His family was in Hot Springs by 1900. He was working as a newspaper reporter when he joined the service. He served as a Pvt 1CL Base Hosp. # 102, Med Dept. He died on October 11, 1933 in Shreveport, Louisiana. He died of complications of a service-connected illness. He is buried in the Forest Park Cemetery in Shreveport. He was described as being tall and slender with brown eyes and black hair.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
Vicenza, March 4,
Mother Dear:
By the time this reaches you we will have left this place and be moving homeward. It appears now that we will leave Vicenza between the 15th and 20th of March sailing from from Genoa within a week or 10 days afterwards. Tappa (Medical Corps Headquarters for the Sixth Army) has been notified not to send us any more patients, and we are admitting only emergency cases and our own men. The operating room closes today, the terms of the transfer for all the equipment to the Italian government (approximately $100,000 worth) have been arranged and very little remains to be done except close all records. Only one thing might cause delay—a hurry call on Saturday afternoon for eight men, and four doctors to proceed at once to Cataro, Dalmatia, to handle an epidemic of jaundice and threatened typhus of the Second Division of the 332nd Infantry stationed here. The orders came at 3 p.m. The nurses left at 6 and the officers and men at 10:30. I’m allowing at least a full month from the time we leave Genoa for the passage and the mustering out process. Ought to be home by last of April anyway. As intimated my furlough was for five days, including travel time and I saw Rome, Florence and Padua. Isn’t it a joke to speak of seeing Rome in two days and Florence in one, when a lifetime would be too short to really see with the seeing inner eye the wonder of the real cradle of Civilization? Picture me, then, as rushing madly from one point of interest to another on my long lanky legs, figuratively hanging on with a death grip the coat tails of the guide. I managed to get a glimpse of St. Peters, the Vatican, Museaum, the Sitine Chapel, the Capitolme Hill with its modern church built on the foundations of the ancient temple of Juno, the Maritime Prison, and the Forum the Colosseum of course; the Basilica of Constantine, the baths of Caracalla (unbelievably immense), the Appian Way to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, Cecelia and another whose name escapes me, the quaint little chapel of Quo Vadis, with its legendary imprint of the Saviors foot believed to mark the exact spot where He appeared to His discouraged disciples. The Basilica of St. Paul far more stately, dignified and impressive to me than St. Peters. I saw these with the physical eye, but alas, I’m afraid very little of it will remain with me long, for the visit was such a whirlwind rush, from one little thing to another and there were many things interesting to me, which the guide passed up, and I had to miss to stick with the party. We were fortunate enough to get accompaniment on the return trip to Florence where we arrived at 4 a.m. Ditto Rome for rushing through the Pettah Gallery, the Uffizi was closed. Our guide a real sure enough American girl in civilian clothes, looked so good to us that we slighted the immortals in frames. Then we breezed through the National Museum once the home of old Cosima di Medici to whom the world of art owes so much. The Church of San Lorenzo, oh so old and quaint. Stood on the spot where Savonarola was burned. Inspected the Baptistery of St. John (14th century) and the adjoining cathedral; admired Giotto’s Tower, but my poor old rheumatic leg was not equal to the climb to the top, skipped through Palazzo Vecchio and the Loggia dei Lanzi. Oh, it is a crime to be in Rome and Florence and not see their treasures as they should be seen leisurely and understandably, but it would have been a worse one to have been (MISSING TEXT) guise of an unappreciative American tourist, for I am sufficiently endowed to appreciate a little of the glory and wonder, the divinity of these monuments of a vanished intelligence and history, to which the world having lost is slowly returning. But I am anticipating and if I once write the whole story of that trip I can never tell it again and as I want to tell you all of it, you must wait for the next installment.
Am enclosing some pictures of the Receiving Office crew in the office.
Best of love to you and all of you, and here’s hoping for a speedy return.
DON
NOTES: Donald Huntley Bancroft is writing to his mother, Mrs. E. H. Bancroft of Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was born on February 26, 1890 in Port Huron, Michigan. His family was in Hot Springs by 1900. He was working as a newspaper reporter when he joined the service. He served as a Pvt 1CL Base Hosp. # 102, Med Dept. He died on October 11, 1933 in Shreveport, Louisiana. He died of complications of a service-connected illness. He is buried in the Forest Park Cemetery in Shreveport. He was described as being tall and slender with brown eyes and black hair.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT