TRANSCRIBED FROM THE GREEN FOREST TRIBUNE DECEMBER 13, 1918 P. 2
Somewhere in France, Oct. 7, 1918.
Miss Mary McGehee,
Green Forest, Ark.
Dear Cousin Mary:
Received your letter yesterday and was sure glad to get it.
Well, Mary I am back in a rest camp once again and believe me it is great to get a little rest.
I came out of it safe and without a scratch so far.
You ask me what I am doing. Well, the newspapers are telling you what we are doing and you know what I enlisted for. See?
Am sorry I did not write to you, Mary, but gee, I haven’t written to mother as often as I should, but I write every chance I get, but sometimes I don’t have a chance for quite a while so beg a pardon.
You ask about those old castles; yes, I have seen many of them as well as most every city in Northern France. Everything is so different from things we see back home. Just now as I write there is an old woman and some children threshing wheat by hand not ten yards from me; they have it beaten off the straw and are running it thru a queer looking hand mill, but the country around Paris would fit very nicely in Kansas. They were using modern farm machinery there; they were harvesting in the country when I was thru there and it almost made me homesick to see those food plains with binders cutting wheat and big gas tractors plowing. One thing I notice was that most all the modern machinery came from the good old U. S. A.
Well Mary I don’t know what to write about as I suppose you have had many letters from France and better ones too if your sweet heart is in France. Ha ha!
Gee, you should see me at the front. I go over the top down where old Jerry sends over a big bugger. I go down in a dugout as fast as I can, See? That is when a dugout is close but you know a guy can’t carry a dugout with him, ha. You know those shells have a musical sound but I don’t like the music very well. Yes they are all right as long as they are singing but when they quit singing it is time for you to move your feet.
Well, Mary, I had better cut this out for you may never receive this letter. We have plenty to eat and it will soon be dinner time so I will close hoping to hear from you soon. I am always so glad to get your letters, you write such interesting ones. If you want to break up a mess line over here just go strolling by with an armful of letters and yell “mail.”
Your affectionate cousin,
Pvt. S. E. York.
Hq. C., 130 F. A. E. F. France.
NOTES: Solomon Eli York was born on May 13, 1896 in Osage, Arkansas and died on January 13, 1981. He is buried in the Pilot Butte Cemetery in Bend, Oregon. He enlisted in the military on July 17, 1917 and was discharged on May 5, 1919.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS
Somewhere in France, Oct. 7, 1918.
Miss Mary McGehee,
Green Forest, Ark.
Dear Cousin Mary:
Received your letter yesterday and was sure glad to get it.
Well, Mary I am back in a rest camp once again and believe me it is great to get a little rest.
I came out of it safe and without a scratch so far.
You ask me what I am doing. Well, the newspapers are telling you what we are doing and you know what I enlisted for. See?
Am sorry I did not write to you, Mary, but gee, I haven’t written to mother as often as I should, but I write every chance I get, but sometimes I don’t have a chance for quite a while so beg a pardon.
You ask about those old castles; yes, I have seen many of them as well as most every city in Northern France. Everything is so different from things we see back home. Just now as I write there is an old woman and some children threshing wheat by hand not ten yards from me; they have it beaten off the straw and are running it thru a queer looking hand mill, but the country around Paris would fit very nicely in Kansas. They were using modern farm machinery there; they were harvesting in the country when I was thru there and it almost made me homesick to see those food plains with binders cutting wheat and big gas tractors plowing. One thing I notice was that most all the modern machinery came from the good old U. S. A.
Well Mary I don’t know what to write about as I suppose you have had many letters from France and better ones too if your sweet heart is in France. Ha ha!
Gee, you should see me at the front. I go over the top down where old Jerry sends over a big bugger. I go down in a dugout as fast as I can, See? That is when a dugout is close but you know a guy can’t carry a dugout with him, ha. You know those shells have a musical sound but I don’t like the music very well. Yes they are all right as long as they are singing but when they quit singing it is time for you to move your feet.
Well, Mary, I had better cut this out for you may never receive this letter. We have plenty to eat and it will soon be dinner time so I will close hoping to hear from you soon. I am always so glad to get your letters, you write such interesting ones. If you want to break up a mess line over here just go strolling by with an armful of letters and yell “mail.”
Your affectionate cousin,
Pvt. S. E. York.
Hq. C., 130 F. A. E. F. France.
NOTES: Solomon Eli York was born on May 13, 1896 in Osage, Arkansas and died on January 13, 1981. He is buried in the Pilot Butte Cemetery in Bend, Oregon. He enlisted in the military on July 17, 1917 and was discharged on May 5, 1919.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS