TRANSCRIBED FROM THE BENTON COURIER OCTOBER 10, 1918 P. 2
This rainy afternoon I will write you a few lines and post you as near as I can to where we are situated. We are living in a nice little French village, and like the French people very much. They seem to be so nice to us and can’t do enough for us. We are still learning to speak their language a little and they are learning to speak ours some.
We have been passing most of our time on excursions going from town to town playing concerts, and as some of the towns are about five miles away, we have to start about five p.m. to get there in time, and by the time we play and get back to camp it is 11 p.m., so you see we keep pretty busy four nights in each week.
The weather has been pretty cool for the past week, but it is not so cool today. I would like mighty well to have my sweater, but guess there is not much chance to get it now the way things are fixed.
We haven’t received any mail since we left camp. Sure would like to get a letter every once in a while, but am not the only one in that fix. When you write me write all the news for I am hungry for some news, and you can write more than I can and get by with it. All mail is censored very closely, and I cannot write much that would be of any interest.
Tell mother I haven’t forgotten her, and wish I was home time and time again, to get a biscuit if nothing else. Where is Aunt Jane? Tell her I think of her often and would like very much to see her. Tell Virgil and the girls that you heard from me. I would like to write to all of them this evening, but haven’t got the paper, and we are fifteen miles from a Y.M.C.A., so you see paper is very scarce.
I am, as ever, your son.
W. W. Landers.
153 Inf. Band.
A.P.O. 741 A.E.F.
NOTES: William Washington “Willie” Landers was writing from France to his father John Jackson Sanders. He was born on January 6, 1895 in Whittington, Garland, Arkansas and died on October 17, 1974 in Benton, Arkansas. He is buried in the Pinecrest Memorial Park and Garden Mausoleum in Alexander, Arkansas. He enlisted on June 19, 1917 and was discharged on May 19, 1919.
TRANSCRIBED BY SHANNON SOUTHARD
This rainy afternoon I will write you a few lines and post you as near as I can to where we are situated. We are living in a nice little French village, and like the French people very much. They seem to be so nice to us and can’t do enough for us. We are still learning to speak their language a little and they are learning to speak ours some.
We have been passing most of our time on excursions going from town to town playing concerts, and as some of the towns are about five miles away, we have to start about five p.m. to get there in time, and by the time we play and get back to camp it is 11 p.m., so you see we keep pretty busy four nights in each week.
The weather has been pretty cool for the past week, but it is not so cool today. I would like mighty well to have my sweater, but guess there is not much chance to get it now the way things are fixed.
We haven’t received any mail since we left camp. Sure would like to get a letter every once in a while, but am not the only one in that fix. When you write me write all the news for I am hungry for some news, and you can write more than I can and get by with it. All mail is censored very closely, and I cannot write much that would be of any interest.
Tell mother I haven’t forgotten her, and wish I was home time and time again, to get a biscuit if nothing else. Where is Aunt Jane? Tell her I think of her often and would like very much to see her. Tell Virgil and the girls that you heard from me. I would like to write to all of them this evening, but haven’t got the paper, and we are fifteen miles from a Y.M.C.A., so you see paper is very scarce.
I am, as ever, your son.
W. W. Landers.
153 Inf. Band.
A.P.O. 741 A.E.F.
NOTES: William Washington “Willie” Landers was writing from France to his father John Jackson Sanders. He was born on January 6, 1895 in Whittington, Garland, Arkansas and died on October 17, 1974 in Benton, Arkansas. He is buried in the Pinecrest Memorial Park and Garden Mausoleum in Alexander, Arkansas. He enlisted on June 19, 1917 and was discharged on May 19, 1919.
TRANSCRIBED BY SHANNON SOUTHARD