TRANSCRIBED FROM THE DAILY ARKANSAS GAZETTE DECEMBER 15, 1918 P. 21
Yesterday was the most wonderful day in the world. Paris has gone mad with joy after five long years of war, and it is perfectly wonderful to be here and see it all. Yesterday morning when the news came that the Kaiser had abdicated and that peace terms had been signed the cannons were fired, bells rang and almost instantly it seemed Paris was one mass of flags and everyone came out to rejoice. It seemed that the whole city went mad and it didn’t take us long to follow suit. We all immediately stopped work for the day and went out and joined them. We decorated the statue of Joan of Arc which stands right in front of the office and then the Red Cross personal marched to the Palace de La Concorde where they have all the captured German guns, airplanes, etc., on display and it was the most wonderful demonstration I have ever seen. The French are so emotional anyway, you know, and they would run out in the streets and grab our hands and kiss them and yell “Vive la America,” with tears streaming down their faces and would form around a bunch of us and dance madly around us as if they had truly gone insane. I felt as if I was creeping in under a circus tent to have been here only a week and to have all that fuss made over me.
I was sad, though, to see the poor old women in mourning standing around crying as if their hearts would break, and we knew that their tears were not for joy and that they were the ones that paid dearly for all this terrible war. The French are still at it today. All the shops and factories are closed and no matter what goes on they just laugh and pass on by. Our headquarters building is one mass of United States flags and they surely do look good.
Last night the city was lighted and the people were even more wild than during the day. Every place you could see American boys with some little cute French girl cuddled up by him and it didn’t seem to make any difference whether they could talk to each other or not; they went on enjoying it just the same.
Nearly all the boys I speak to are talking about going home and the “American grin,” is quite prominent. We Americans are one over here and we yell “hello” at every one we meet and have just as good a time as the French. The spirit that exists between the French and Americans is wonderful and the girls here in the building seem to worship us. Yesterday when they were decorating the Joan of Arc statue, they put the American flag on top, because it was the largest, and some of us remarked about it and said maybe they should not have done that, as we were in France, but one of the girls said. “Oh, that is the proper place for it, because if it had not been for the American boys we would not be celebrating at all today.”
NOTES: This partial letter was written by Lillian Page to her brother Clyde Page, in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was living in Little Rock prior to the war. She volunteered as a Red Cross worker and served as a transcriptionist in France and Germany mostly with the US Army of Occupation. While in France she met Lieutenant Charles M. Garrison of the Navy who she married on February 4, 1922 at Manila in the Philippines. She was born on July 9, 1888 in Doniphan, Missouri and died on May 6, 1961 in California. She is buried in the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, California. She is identified as a wife of a veteran.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
Yesterday was the most wonderful day in the world. Paris has gone mad with joy after five long years of war, and it is perfectly wonderful to be here and see it all. Yesterday morning when the news came that the Kaiser had abdicated and that peace terms had been signed the cannons were fired, bells rang and almost instantly it seemed Paris was one mass of flags and everyone came out to rejoice. It seemed that the whole city went mad and it didn’t take us long to follow suit. We all immediately stopped work for the day and went out and joined them. We decorated the statue of Joan of Arc which stands right in front of the office and then the Red Cross personal marched to the Palace de La Concorde where they have all the captured German guns, airplanes, etc., on display and it was the most wonderful demonstration I have ever seen. The French are so emotional anyway, you know, and they would run out in the streets and grab our hands and kiss them and yell “Vive la America,” with tears streaming down their faces and would form around a bunch of us and dance madly around us as if they had truly gone insane. I felt as if I was creeping in under a circus tent to have been here only a week and to have all that fuss made over me.
I was sad, though, to see the poor old women in mourning standing around crying as if their hearts would break, and we knew that their tears were not for joy and that they were the ones that paid dearly for all this terrible war. The French are still at it today. All the shops and factories are closed and no matter what goes on they just laugh and pass on by. Our headquarters building is one mass of United States flags and they surely do look good.
Last night the city was lighted and the people were even more wild than during the day. Every place you could see American boys with some little cute French girl cuddled up by him and it didn’t seem to make any difference whether they could talk to each other or not; they went on enjoying it just the same.
Nearly all the boys I speak to are talking about going home and the “American grin,” is quite prominent. We Americans are one over here and we yell “hello” at every one we meet and have just as good a time as the French. The spirit that exists between the French and Americans is wonderful and the girls here in the building seem to worship us. Yesterday when they were decorating the Joan of Arc statue, they put the American flag on top, because it was the largest, and some of us remarked about it and said maybe they should not have done that, as we were in France, but one of the girls said. “Oh, that is the proper place for it, because if it had not been for the American boys we would not be celebrating at all today.”
NOTES: This partial letter was written by Lillian Page to her brother Clyde Page, in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was living in Little Rock prior to the war. She volunteered as a Red Cross worker and served as a transcriptionist in France and Germany mostly with the US Army of Occupation. While in France she met Lieutenant Charles M. Garrison of the Navy who she married on February 4, 1922 at Manila in the Philippines. She was born on July 9, 1888 in Doniphan, Missouri and died on May 6, 1961 in California. She is buried in the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, California. She is identified as a wife of a veteran.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT