TRANSCRIBED FROM THE PINE BLUFF DAILY GRAPHIC DECEMBER 8, 1917 P. 5
Dear Mother:
I received your most welcome letter day before yesterday, and will try to answer tonight by the light of a candle. I do not have time to write in the daylight, except on Sundays, and I don’t want to wait until then. Had a letter from Elizabeth at the same time. She writes you are taking Maude home with you about Thanksgiving. Surely wish I could be there then, and for Christmas too, but I won’t be the only who spends the holidays away from home. I suppose all the girls will be home for Christmas. Elizabeth asked me for a photograph. Would like to send one but I sent all I could while in the United States for we are not allowed to keep cameras or kodaks in our possession while we are in France. There are several nice souvenirs in the exchange here which I would like to send home, but it is very risky to send anything of value thru the mail. Of course these aren’t very valuable but chances are they would be lost. You know all the mail leaving France is censored. I have made a small allotment payable to you each month. Please let me know when you get the first one. I received a letter from Claud the other day. He is a cheerful old fellow, but don’t tell him the stuff he wrote me won’t whip the Germans. They don’t ‘fall’ for that. Am not writing many these days for I am too busy, so you read this and forward it on to the girls, though I expect by the time you get it the family will all be together for it takes about 23 days for me to get one of your letters, according to the dates of them.
Will be glad to get a letter from Maude again. Am glad she is improving rapidly. Tell the girls to get me a big pair of leather gloves with hight gauntlets and be sure they are gloves, not mittens, and good heavy ones and plenty large, for you know I have large hands and want to wear a pair of wool gloves beneath them. Also send heavy wool socks. That is about all I need. Have plenty of good warm clothes and a good bed. They issue us bunks and my chum and I knocked the sides out of ours and sleep together. It keeps us much warmer. We have three blankets each, so we sleep on one and cover with five and if we get cold we have our big overcoats to put on top. We have the bunks full of straw and it makes a fine bed. We have four stoves in our barracks, and, as a whole, are very expected under the circumstances, really better than I expected. We have our captain to thank for a big part of our good fortune, for he seems to have the company in mind all the time. He has gotten American tobacco for us several times and some hob nailed shoes, and I know he had a hard time getting them. The other day he was on his way to another village and two deer ran across the road in front of his car. His first words were ‘Gee, I wish I had my gun with me. Nothing would please me beeter than to take one of the home to the company.’ That is what he said, the truck driver told us, so you see, he thinks a lot of his company, but he does not think anymore of us than we do of him. I must close now, mother, and write to Willa and Beatrice. I hope this finds you as well as I am. Lots of love to all.
Your son,
“PRIVATE ROBERT CLYDE MCCOLLOCH”
NOTES: Robert Clyde McColloch is writing from France to his mother Mrs. Ollie A. McCulloch of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The letter was dated November 3. He has been in the service about six months and was with Company B, Second Regiment.
TRANSCRIBED BY ISAAC WOLTER
Dear Mother:
I received your most welcome letter day before yesterday, and will try to answer tonight by the light of a candle. I do not have time to write in the daylight, except on Sundays, and I don’t want to wait until then. Had a letter from Elizabeth at the same time. She writes you are taking Maude home with you about Thanksgiving. Surely wish I could be there then, and for Christmas too, but I won’t be the only who spends the holidays away from home. I suppose all the girls will be home for Christmas. Elizabeth asked me for a photograph. Would like to send one but I sent all I could while in the United States for we are not allowed to keep cameras or kodaks in our possession while we are in France. There are several nice souvenirs in the exchange here which I would like to send home, but it is very risky to send anything of value thru the mail. Of course these aren’t very valuable but chances are they would be lost. You know all the mail leaving France is censored. I have made a small allotment payable to you each month. Please let me know when you get the first one. I received a letter from Claud the other day. He is a cheerful old fellow, but don’t tell him the stuff he wrote me won’t whip the Germans. They don’t ‘fall’ for that. Am not writing many these days for I am too busy, so you read this and forward it on to the girls, though I expect by the time you get it the family will all be together for it takes about 23 days for me to get one of your letters, according to the dates of them.
Will be glad to get a letter from Maude again. Am glad she is improving rapidly. Tell the girls to get me a big pair of leather gloves with hight gauntlets and be sure they are gloves, not mittens, and good heavy ones and plenty large, for you know I have large hands and want to wear a pair of wool gloves beneath them. Also send heavy wool socks. That is about all I need. Have plenty of good warm clothes and a good bed. They issue us bunks and my chum and I knocked the sides out of ours and sleep together. It keeps us much warmer. We have three blankets each, so we sleep on one and cover with five and if we get cold we have our big overcoats to put on top. We have the bunks full of straw and it makes a fine bed. We have four stoves in our barracks, and, as a whole, are very expected under the circumstances, really better than I expected. We have our captain to thank for a big part of our good fortune, for he seems to have the company in mind all the time. He has gotten American tobacco for us several times and some hob nailed shoes, and I know he had a hard time getting them. The other day he was on his way to another village and two deer ran across the road in front of his car. His first words were ‘Gee, I wish I had my gun with me. Nothing would please me beeter than to take one of the home to the company.’ That is what he said, the truck driver told us, so you see, he thinks a lot of his company, but he does not think anymore of us than we do of him. I must close now, mother, and write to Willa and Beatrice. I hope this finds you as well as I am. Lots of love to all.
Your son,
“PRIVATE ROBERT CLYDE MCCOLLOCH”
NOTES: Robert Clyde McColloch is writing from France to his mother Mrs. Ollie A. McCulloch of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The letter was dated November 3. He has been in the service about six months and was with Company B, Second Regiment.
TRANSCRIBED BY ISAAC WOLTER