TRANSCRIBED FROM THE PRESCOTT DAILY NEWS AUGUST 10, 1918 P. 3
France, July 19, 1918.
Dear Father:
Your letter was received along with mother’s some few days past. I am very glad indeed to know that everything is well with you at home, and hope things will continue the same.
We have been having very cool weather until last week, and it surely has been hot since.
The fourteenth was celebrated by all A.E.F. troops as was the Fourth. Both were big days all over France and especially Paris.
Six months have passed since we came across and we are wearing our first service stripe, and we wouldn’t take a million for them. But I hope the war will end before we get another.
Germany has started a new drive which is proving a failure from the start. They are like a drowning man, and will do anything now to save themselves.
The Americans are whipping the life out of them and the funny thing is that the most of them are green troops just over from the States.
Only goes to show what the Yanks can do once they get “all het up.” And the Italians are taking very good care of Austria.
We are doing fine at our work and will probably stay here for some time. We are working on one type of machine at present and will work on others later.
While walking down the street yesterday I happened upon a Mr. Martin, who was in my company at Camp Pike. His home is somewhere around Laneburg, and he is now a corporal in the engineers. The world really is small after all. However, there is an awful big pond between here and home. As one nigger said on our boat, after she nearly went under in a storm, “I’se goin’ to write my wife that she’ll have to git her another nigger, ‘cause I never is goin’ to cross that pond again.”
Well, father, I’ll close this, hoping to receive an answer as soon as possible. Everybody is happy about the whipping the Germans are getting.
Your son,
Louie.
639 Aero Squad, A.E.F. via N.Y.
NOTES: Louie Preston Stephenson was born in Sparta, Illinois on March 4, 1896 and died in Stephens, Arkansas on November 18, 1940. He is buried in the Stephens Cemetery. He departed Bordeaux, France on January 29, 1919 onboard the Santa Teresa. He arrived in Hoboken, NJ on February 13, 1919. He was listed as a Private serving in Convalescent Detachment #1.
TRANSCRIBED BY SHANNON SOUTHARD
France, July 19, 1918.
Dear Father:
Your letter was received along with mother’s some few days past. I am very glad indeed to know that everything is well with you at home, and hope things will continue the same.
We have been having very cool weather until last week, and it surely has been hot since.
The fourteenth was celebrated by all A.E.F. troops as was the Fourth. Both were big days all over France and especially Paris.
Six months have passed since we came across and we are wearing our first service stripe, and we wouldn’t take a million for them. But I hope the war will end before we get another.
Germany has started a new drive which is proving a failure from the start. They are like a drowning man, and will do anything now to save themselves.
The Americans are whipping the life out of them and the funny thing is that the most of them are green troops just over from the States.
Only goes to show what the Yanks can do once they get “all het up.” And the Italians are taking very good care of Austria.
We are doing fine at our work and will probably stay here for some time. We are working on one type of machine at present and will work on others later.
While walking down the street yesterday I happened upon a Mr. Martin, who was in my company at Camp Pike. His home is somewhere around Laneburg, and he is now a corporal in the engineers. The world really is small after all. However, there is an awful big pond between here and home. As one nigger said on our boat, after she nearly went under in a storm, “I’se goin’ to write my wife that she’ll have to git her another nigger, ‘cause I never is goin’ to cross that pond again.”
Well, father, I’ll close this, hoping to receive an answer as soon as possible. Everybody is happy about the whipping the Germans are getting.
Your son,
Louie.
639 Aero Squad, A.E.F. via N.Y.
NOTES: Louie Preston Stephenson was born in Sparta, Illinois on March 4, 1896 and died in Stephens, Arkansas on November 18, 1940. He is buried in the Stephens Cemetery. He departed Bordeaux, France on January 29, 1919 onboard the Santa Teresa. He arrived in Hoboken, NJ on February 13, 1919. He was listed as a Private serving in Convalescent Detachment #1.
TRANSCRIBED BY SHANNON SOUTHARD