Farmers in New York (hahaha!)

Can't you just see Herb in his uniform with his two stripes wandering down the streets and peering in the windows as he dreams of home and wonders what his friends are up to. We met Herb Blake here. So nice to know he is married and hopefully happy.

We have met Birdella here. I still don't know who she is; again, I think a neighbor who gets the honorary title of Aunt.

I found this post card here

February 15, 1919

Dearest Mother and all,

I’ve finally settled down in a very comfortable quarters where I hope to stay until ordered back to the Ambulance Service Base Camp for my last ocean trip.

The Section has now been in Epinal for about a week and since Epinal is headquarters for the 13th Division I expect that we are to stay. The 13th, you see, is a regular army division and was stationed in the district before the war, on frontier guard duty.

We’re in a suburb of Epinal proper but less than a mile from the centre of the town and up on a hill. All the men are together in an empty house that was “to let” until we requisitioned it. The top sergeant and myself are in an empty half-furnished apartment a few doors down the street. It really isn’t half bad. The first three or four days the weather was very cold – pretty close to zero Fahrenheit and things were none too comfortable because this apartment had been locked up for a long time and was cold as a barn. But an oil stove cheered things up a lot and since then Spring thaw has come and it’s finally warm, though rainy, of course. The people here seem to think that winter is through for good and I’m not sorry about it. Now I suppose we’re due for at least a month of rain.

We’re practically doing no work at all – only three cars are on duty, so we’ve plenty of time on our hands. The sergeant and I wander around Epinal looking into store windows like a couple of farmers in New York. It’s so long since I’ve been in a village of more than five hundred people that I hardly know how to act. There are three movie houses that show American films, old films, of course, and we take in one of them almost every evening.

The town is full of M.P.s, of course, but they don’t bother us for some reason or other provided we clear off the streets before 9:30 pm.

Your letters of January 19 and 24 came this week both in the same mail. I was interested in that letter from Mrs. White. The boys all had rather a hard time, didn’t they?

Still no authentic news about going home. I hear rumours [sic] that some Sections are to go before the end of this month and regularly thereafter. That’s fairly official but I do not know yet what Sections have really gone or even whether any have started back. It has been half promised that the Service will be broken up by the end of July but that may mean anything or nothing. Basing demobilization on length of time in France + length of service at the front SSU 580 out to be among the first third of the Service to start for home.
I shall let you know at once, of course, if I hear anything reliable.

Your affectionate son,
Herbert