TRANSCRIBED FROM THE NEWPORT DAILY INDEPENDENT DECEMBER 8, 1918 P. 2
Camp Kearney, Calif.,
Tues., Dec. 3, 1918.
Mr. James H. Johnston,
Newport, Ark.
Dear Brother:
I want to thank you for sending me the Independent.
I am still in the medical department of the 66th F. A., and the influenza ban is lifted on the departments which are well of the disease. I got a three days’ pass last Saturday to be absent from duty and I went out to San Diego and caught a stage car for Los Angeles. We will have to hand it to California for its good roads. They are a perfect network along the coast especially, and when they gave it the name of the “golden state” they named it correctly. On my way to Los Angeles I saw world’s of orange groves, the trees averaging about twelve feet in height and they are loaded from top to bottom with oranges. Some of them are being gathered now and some are green and won’t be gathered until February. There are nice fields of vegetables of all kinds, which the people are planting and gathering just as we would in the summer months at home.
Well, I found Los Angeles to be a very pretty city and while there I caught a car from Venice, which is right on the coast. I went in bathing there in the ocean, and, to make my trip more interesting I made an aerial flight with Aviator Whitney of Venice, California, and circled over Los Angeles and Venice and over the ocean. The machine registered at an altitude of four thousand feet at our highest. Our fastest speed was one hundred miles per hour. I had thought that to ride in one would make me dizzy, but I did not experience the least feeling of dizziness. I was strapped in good and if I had become sick I could not have helped myself. The aviator was a civilian and because I wore my Uncle’s uniform he did not charge me very much.
Well, I believe I will be home for Christmas or by the first of the year anyway. Believe me, they can’t turn me loose too quick.
Your brother,
E. L. Johnston.
NOTES: Elbert L. Johnston was born in Auvergne, Arkansas on May 14, 1889 and was living at Weldon, Arkansas at the time of this letter. He was writing his brother, Attorney James H. Johnston of Newport, Arkansas. At the time he registered for the draft he was employed by a local mercantile company and single. He died on April 19, 1952 and is buried in the Walnut Grove Cemetery in Jackson County, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS
Camp Kearney, Calif.,
Tues., Dec. 3, 1918.
Mr. James H. Johnston,
Newport, Ark.
Dear Brother:
I want to thank you for sending me the Independent.
I am still in the medical department of the 66th F. A., and the influenza ban is lifted on the departments which are well of the disease. I got a three days’ pass last Saturday to be absent from duty and I went out to San Diego and caught a stage car for Los Angeles. We will have to hand it to California for its good roads. They are a perfect network along the coast especially, and when they gave it the name of the “golden state” they named it correctly. On my way to Los Angeles I saw world’s of orange groves, the trees averaging about twelve feet in height and they are loaded from top to bottom with oranges. Some of them are being gathered now and some are green and won’t be gathered until February. There are nice fields of vegetables of all kinds, which the people are planting and gathering just as we would in the summer months at home.
Well, I found Los Angeles to be a very pretty city and while there I caught a car from Venice, which is right on the coast. I went in bathing there in the ocean, and, to make my trip more interesting I made an aerial flight with Aviator Whitney of Venice, California, and circled over Los Angeles and Venice and over the ocean. The machine registered at an altitude of four thousand feet at our highest. Our fastest speed was one hundred miles per hour. I had thought that to ride in one would make me dizzy, but I did not experience the least feeling of dizziness. I was strapped in good and if I had become sick I could not have helped myself. The aviator was a civilian and because I wore my Uncle’s uniform he did not charge me very much.
Well, I believe I will be home for Christmas or by the first of the year anyway. Believe me, they can’t turn me loose too quick.
Your brother,
E. L. Johnston.
NOTES: Elbert L. Johnston was born in Auvergne, Arkansas on May 14, 1889 and was living at Weldon, Arkansas at the time of this letter. He was writing his brother, Attorney James H. Johnston of Newport, Arkansas. At the time he registered for the draft he was employed by a local mercantile company and single. He died on April 19, 1952 and is buried in the Walnut Grove Cemetery in Jackson County, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS