TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ARKANSAS GAZETTE FEBRUARY 16, 1919 P. 33
My Dear Mother and All:
If I have started one letter I have started at least five or six, but something has happened each time, preventing my answering your letter of November 27. Although I have answered letters from you of more recent date I always try to answer each letter as I receive it.
I have heard from a reliable source that the marines will be back in the States by the first or the middle of March, so that isn’t so bad after all. If we don’t come home we will go to Berlin to restore peace and order. They have been raising “H” there and Germany was just about to face a civil war. According to the papers now things have recently ceased and order has been restored once more in the great German capital.
You spoke of me bringing you a souvenir from Germany. I am going to bring you all some kind of a souvenir from here. I will either box ‘em up and send them to you or bring them myself. It might not be much and again it might be just according, more than anything else, to what I can carry on my back. You see, when we pack up and move everything that belongs to us goes on our back, and then you see us trodding along the “weary road to Dublin.”
When I think about you worrying about me it hurts. Now it’s about all over, so just look forward to the “grand and glorious time” we are all going to have when I reach home. And about me re-enlisting—don’t ever think of it. I was only a duration of the war man.
Mother, I am going to have my picture taken the first chance I can get to one of the studios here in town. But most of them at present are out of material. It also takes about a week for a fellow to learn the working days. Some days they don’t work and some days they do, so if I am lucky enough to run in on one of their working days I will get this mug of mine snapped and send you one. The town is all right. We can get nearly anything we want from an iron cross on up.
I suppose I might as well tell you now that I was decorated the other day with the French war cross, Croix de Guerre, for something that happened at Chateau Thierry. I received papers with it, but they were in French, so I don’t know what it means and can’t be worried.
Well mother, this is about all I know at this time, so I will close, with love and best regards to all.
Hobart L Clark.
NOTES: Hobart Lawson Clark was writing on January 17, 1919 from Andernach, Germany to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Howard Clark of Little Rock. He was serving with the Marines and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his actions at Chateau Thierry. He was born September 13, 1898. He died March 22, 1970 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Butler, Bates County, Missouri.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
My Dear Mother and All:
If I have started one letter I have started at least five or six, but something has happened each time, preventing my answering your letter of November 27. Although I have answered letters from you of more recent date I always try to answer each letter as I receive it.
I have heard from a reliable source that the marines will be back in the States by the first or the middle of March, so that isn’t so bad after all. If we don’t come home we will go to Berlin to restore peace and order. They have been raising “H” there and Germany was just about to face a civil war. According to the papers now things have recently ceased and order has been restored once more in the great German capital.
You spoke of me bringing you a souvenir from Germany. I am going to bring you all some kind of a souvenir from here. I will either box ‘em up and send them to you or bring them myself. It might not be much and again it might be just according, more than anything else, to what I can carry on my back. You see, when we pack up and move everything that belongs to us goes on our back, and then you see us trodding along the “weary road to Dublin.”
When I think about you worrying about me it hurts. Now it’s about all over, so just look forward to the “grand and glorious time” we are all going to have when I reach home. And about me re-enlisting—don’t ever think of it. I was only a duration of the war man.
Mother, I am going to have my picture taken the first chance I can get to one of the studios here in town. But most of them at present are out of material. It also takes about a week for a fellow to learn the working days. Some days they don’t work and some days they do, so if I am lucky enough to run in on one of their working days I will get this mug of mine snapped and send you one. The town is all right. We can get nearly anything we want from an iron cross on up.
I suppose I might as well tell you now that I was decorated the other day with the French war cross, Croix de Guerre, for something that happened at Chateau Thierry. I received papers with it, but they were in French, so I don’t know what it means and can’t be worried.
Well mother, this is about all I know at this time, so I will close, with love and best regards to all.
Hobart L Clark.
NOTES: Hobart Lawson Clark was writing on January 17, 1919 from Andernach, Germany to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Howard Clark of Little Rock. He was serving with the Marines and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his actions at Chateau Thierry. He was born September 13, 1898. He died March 22, 1970 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Butler, Bates County, Missouri.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT