TRANSCRIBED FROM THE MENA WEEKLY STAR, JANUARY 24, 1918, P. 5
Mrs. E. A. Cooper, Nunley, Ark.
Dear Mother:
I’ll answer your most kind letter received today. I think there wasn’t anything to that news of us going to France. I don’t think we will have to go before April if we go at all. I don’t much think we will ever have to go. There is a French officer over here and he says that we will all be mustered out of the army within six months. I believe that peace will be declared in six months. I don’t drill much now and don’t have to work very hard. I am making my thirty dollars easy. I got my blanket all right, and it is sure fine, but I could have bought a blanket at Alexandria. I don’t need anything very nice here for it will soon get dirty. I just wanted some old quilt that wasn’t very good. This camp is quarantined against the meningitis from Alexandria and Alexandria is quarantined against the camp. There has been several cases of meningitis lately.
I can’t go home until this quarantine is over. I think I can come home then.
Say, mother, I get plenty to eat but it is the same thing every day, so if it isn’t too much trouble I wish you would send me something to eat that I haven’t been eating. Send me a pound of fresh butter and some sausage or boiled ham, and sweet potatoes, and a cake. Fix it up in my suit case.
How are Mr. Clark’s folks getting along? Fine I hope. Do they still live on their old place? Send me Arthur’s address; I want to write to him. And, mother, has father collected all those notes of mine?
When are they thinking of calling the rest of the boys? I feel sorry for them, but the army is all right after a man gets reconciled to it. It takes the army to make a man of some of the boys. All of the boys here are pretty well trained.
P. S. I get The Mena Star every week but there isn’t much Nunley news in it. I wish someone would write the Nunley news. Say, mother, I am not sick, but I have taken cold so you may send me some medicine with that junk. Send me something for a cold. They are supposed to furnish us all with medicine, but they don’t give what I have always been used to, so you know what to send me. You need not think that I am going hungry, and am sick, because I am writing for this stuff, for I am not. I weigh 181 pounds and feel just fine. I am getting along fine.
So good night,
Your son.
L. C. Cooper.
NOTES: Alonzo Clayton “Lonny” Cooper was born on November 24, 1895 and died on August 9, 1962 in San Francisco, California. He is buried in the Golden Gate National Cemetery at Bruno, California. He military headstone identifies him as an Arkansas Pvt. in the U S Army, 39th Division in World War I. He was described as being tall and of medium build with blue eyes and red hair.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT.
Mrs. E. A. Cooper, Nunley, Ark.
Dear Mother:
I’ll answer your most kind letter received today. I think there wasn’t anything to that news of us going to France. I don’t think we will have to go before April if we go at all. I don’t much think we will ever have to go. There is a French officer over here and he says that we will all be mustered out of the army within six months. I believe that peace will be declared in six months. I don’t drill much now and don’t have to work very hard. I am making my thirty dollars easy. I got my blanket all right, and it is sure fine, but I could have bought a blanket at Alexandria. I don’t need anything very nice here for it will soon get dirty. I just wanted some old quilt that wasn’t very good. This camp is quarantined against the meningitis from Alexandria and Alexandria is quarantined against the camp. There has been several cases of meningitis lately.
I can’t go home until this quarantine is over. I think I can come home then.
Say, mother, I get plenty to eat but it is the same thing every day, so if it isn’t too much trouble I wish you would send me something to eat that I haven’t been eating. Send me a pound of fresh butter and some sausage or boiled ham, and sweet potatoes, and a cake. Fix it up in my suit case.
How are Mr. Clark’s folks getting along? Fine I hope. Do they still live on their old place? Send me Arthur’s address; I want to write to him. And, mother, has father collected all those notes of mine?
When are they thinking of calling the rest of the boys? I feel sorry for them, but the army is all right after a man gets reconciled to it. It takes the army to make a man of some of the boys. All of the boys here are pretty well trained.
P. S. I get The Mena Star every week but there isn’t much Nunley news in it. I wish someone would write the Nunley news. Say, mother, I am not sick, but I have taken cold so you may send me some medicine with that junk. Send me something for a cold. They are supposed to furnish us all with medicine, but they don’t give what I have always been used to, so you know what to send me. You need not think that I am going hungry, and am sick, because I am writing for this stuff, for I am not. I weigh 181 pounds and feel just fine. I am getting along fine.
So good night,
Your son.
L. C. Cooper.
NOTES: Alonzo Clayton “Lonny” Cooper was born on November 24, 1895 and died on August 9, 1962 in San Francisco, California. He is buried in the Golden Gate National Cemetery at Bruno, California. He military headstone identifies him as an Arkansas Pvt. in the U S Army, 39th Division in World War I. He was described as being tall and of medium build with blue eyes and red hair.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT.