TRANSCRIBED FROM THE MOUNTAIN WAVE MAY 31, 1918 P. 2
Somewhere In France, May 4, 1918.
Dear Editor:
I am writing this on a rainy Saturday night. Although it is nice, warm and pleasant here now, it usually gets cool towards morning and you will want all your cover, but on going to bed it is pleasant under a blanket. This is certainly the prettiest country in the world. More fine gardens, vineyards, little meadows and fields. When you start out from the coast, especially where we landed, the gardens are small and the little fields and pastures have one or two acres in them, but the farther in from the coast the larger they are.
Well this is Sunday morning. As the lights have to be put out at 9:30, I could not finish my letter last night. We had a thunder storm last night and rain.
Well I wish you could see this country. The houses are all brick concrete or stone and all have a slate roof or tiling. The land is very rich and they get lots of stuff for the amount of land they cultivate.
In many places there are large trees growing in the hedge which are trimmed every year, and every bunch is cut off the tree and it looks like a stump from sometimes 5 to 40 feet high.
They save every twig or stick that they cut and in clearing these groves I think they dig up the stumps. I think after they cultivate these places as long as they wish in that piece they plant it back in timber. Some of the steepest and roughest probably is never put in cultivation but they cut the stuff off and let it grow up again.
Don’t see many boats on the rivers and no steamboats so far at all.
The rivers I think are broad shallow streams. There is one here at this place 3 or 4, yes, 4 or 6 times as big as Buffalo and there is not a boat in sight, and the biidge is a big, low concrete affair out and out. I suppose in the center it is 15 or 20 feet above the water. Big arched piers every 30 or 40 feet. The timber here is peculiar, most all seem to be a soft wood. I’ve not seen an oak, some black locust, but it mostly seems to be a hickory or horse chestnut and along the streets a good many elms and linn treets, but elm is not like ours.
The people look rather peculiar. Most of them are dark complexion. Rarely see a red headed woman or light headed either. Not very many of them are pretty but they jabber like geese. You can’t understand them or they you. Tried an hour to find out about some laundry yesterday and finally then had to go and get an American to interpret for me.
Their work looked nice and clean, but they charge plenty—3 cents a pair for sox. Really not quite that much, either. A franc equals 20 cents in ordinary times. Now it is worth 17½ cents in our money. One franc equals 100 centimes French money. Then a centime now is less than 1-5 of a cent in our money, but it used to be worth 1-5th of a cent. Sox are 15 centimes a pair for washing; my union suits 80 centimes each, or about 14 cents each.
You certainly have to spend your money here, it seems, some way or another. I got to France with $48.00. Two days later I got my pay and got $46.80, so then yesterday I got mileage for my last trip over here on the R. R.—$24.76. Now I have about $90.00. Of course, I’ve had to buy some more stuff since I came over—hotel bill, and have my board here now paid for a week ahead.
They are now making us buy what they call a Sam Brown belt, which is a reddish brown color, 3 inches wide around the waist, over your coat, high up; then another strap fastened to it, coming over the right shoulder, front and back. And don’t you know we have to pay $8 or $9 for them. I paid 48 francs, or $7.87 for mine. It’s nonsense. They are now making us buy a little cloth cap, perked before and behind, or folded at the crown, just cloth only, and they want 16 francs, or nearly $3.00. You see, they are just trying to bleed the officer every place he goes for all he is worth.
Our food is good, really better than at Fort Oglethorpe, and costs less. I am paying 28 francs a week, or 4 a day, or just 70 cents a day. Now that sounds cheap to us officers who have been paying so much before. The Y. M. C. A. is running the place.
Lt. I. S. Butler.
NOTES: Isaac Stirman Butler was born December 6, 1876 in Searcy County Arkansas and died on July 24, 1958 in Little Rock Arkansas. He is buried in the Canaan Cemetery in Marshall, Arkansas. His military headstone identifies him as a 1st Lieut, 1 Bn., 7 FA., 1 Division. His headstone application shows him as a 1st BN Surgeon. He was a longtime doctor in Marshall and Texas.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS
Somewhere In France, May 4, 1918.
Dear Editor:
I am writing this on a rainy Saturday night. Although it is nice, warm and pleasant here now, it usually gets cool towards morning and you will want all your cover, but on going to bed it is pleasant under a blanket. This is certainly the prettiest country in the world. More fine gardens, vineyards, little meadows and fields. When you start out from the coast, especially where we landed, the gardens are small and the little fields and pastures have one or two acres in them, but the farther in from the coast the larger they are.
Well this is Sunday morning. As the lights have to be put out at 9:30, I could not finish my letter last night. We had a thunder storm last night and rain.
Well I wish you could see this country. The houses are all brick concrete or stone and all have a slate roof or tiling. The land is very rich and they get lots of stuff for the amount of land they cultivate.
In many places there are large trees growing in the hedge which are trimmed every year, and every bunch is cut off the tree and it looks like a stump from sometimes 5 to 40 feet high.
They save every twig or stick that they cut and in clearing these groves I think they dig up the stumps. I think after they cultivate these places as long as they wish in that piece they plant it back in timber. Some of the steepest and roughest probably is never put in cultivation but they cut the stuff off and let it grow up again.
Don’t see many boats on the rivers and no steamboats so far at all.
The rivers I think are broad shallow streams. There is one here at this place 3 or 4, yes, 4 or 6 times as big as Buffalo and there is not a boat in sight, and the biidge is a big, low concrete affair out and out. I suppose in the center it is 15 or 20 feet above the water. Big arched piers every 30 or 40 feet. The timber here is peculiar, most all seem to be a soft wood. I’ve not seen an oak, some black locust, but it mostly seems to be a hickory or horse chestnut and along the streets a good many elms and linn treets, but elm is not like ours.
The people look rather peculiar. Most of them are dark complexion. Rarely see a red headed woman or light headed either. Not very many of them are pretty but they jabber like geese. You can’t understand them or they you. Tried an hour to find out about some laundry yesterday and finally then had to go and get an American to interpret for me.
Their work looked nice and clean, but they charge plenty—3 cents a pair for sox. Really not quite that much, either. A franc equals 20 cents in ordinary times. Now it is worth 17½ cents in our money. One franc equals 100 centimes French money. Then a centime now is less than 1-5 of a cent in our money, but it used to be worth 1-5th of a cent. Sox are 15 centimes a pair for washing; my union suits 80 centimes each, or about 14 cents each.
You certainly have to spend your money here, it seems, some way or another. I got to France with $48.00. Two days later I got my pay and got $46.80, so then yesterday I got mileage for my last trip over here on the R. R.—$24.76. Now I have about $90.00. Of course, I’ve had to buy some more stuff since I came over—hotel bill, and have my board here now paid for a week ahead.
They are now making us buy what they call a Sam Brown belt, which is a reddish brown color, 3 inches wide around the waist, over your coat, high up; then another strap fastened to it, coming over the right shoulder, front and back. And don’t you know we have to pay $8 or $9 for them. I paid 48 francs, or $7.87 for mine. It’s nonsense. They are now making us buy a little cloth cap, perked before and behind, or folded at the crown, just cloth only, and they want 16 francs, or nearly $3.00. You see, they are just trying to bleed the officer every place he goes for all he is worth.
Our food is good, really better than at Fort Oglethorpe, and costs less. I am paying 28 francs a week, or 4 a day, or just 70 cents a day. Now that sounds cheap to us officers who have been paying so much before. The Y. M. C. A. is running the place.
Lt. I. S. Butler.
NOTES: Isaac Stirman Butler was born December 6, 1876 in Searcy County Arkansas and died on July 24, 1958 in Little Rock Arkansas. He is buried in the Canaan Cemetery in Marshall, Arkansas. His military headstone identifies him as a 1st Lieut, 1 Bn., 7 FA., 1 Division. His headstone application shows him as a 1st BN Surgeon. He was a longtime doctor in Marshall and Texas.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS