Herb's birthday

Dang - to think that my great grandmother couldn't vote... not until 1920. So Herb is indicating that his father and his brother are the two votes in the family as Herb is overseas fighting.

I wasn't able to find anything on Willie Heart.

Olive is Herb's younger sister, and I now believe Marnie is Margaret. Margaret must be 7 years old.

I figured I should include a photo of Herb, in honor of his birthday in our series of letters:

This photo was taken in 1926 - so at this time he is home with a daughter. (And, NO! he is not married to Karolyn, he is married to Florence and I have no idea when they met, or what happened to Karolyn!) Handsome looking dude, wouldn't you say?

July 7, 1918
Dearest Mother,

This is a very special occasion today – not only Sunday, but my birthday as well – the second in the Service and I hope the last. I should have liked to have gone to church, but there is no church for Protestants.

The mail has been pretty backward so I have looked in vain. For word from you or for the packages that Dad had sent to me. That probably means that I’m due for a lot all in one bunch in a few days or so.

The weather is very fine and gives promise of staying so, warm but not too warm, and fair practically all the time now.

Lots of American troops have been coming up in to our Sector the past week. It certainly seems good to see them – that is to us, I don’t believe it pleases Jerry very much.

For three or four days we had an American band in the village and every evening we had a concert. It did sound good to hear real American music. However they went away the night before the 4th.

I have just been writing to Charlie and am going to write the Shermans in a day or two. I wrote Tom, as perhaps I told you, but haven’t heard from him yet. It’s pretty soon to be expecting a reply anyway.

We get a couple of English papers every day, so I manage to keep up with the news now. On the hole it’s very satisfactory, I think.

My own birthday brought to my mind the fact that Harry must be nineteen and that the kids must be rapidly growing up. And yet I can remember Harry toddling around the back yard and crying because Mr. Merrill’s dog had knocked him down.

The papers speak of Willie Heart’s determination to run for Governor. I think he has an unprecedented gall, but then, he’s had that a long time. I’d like to be home to vote. However, we have two votes in the family anyway, haven’t we?

Whenever [sic] you get that money I’ve allotted to you out of my pay, please let me know. Don’t worry about it if it doesn’t come, though, because those things often take several months. If you need it, use it, but if you don’t, put it in the bank.

Ask Olive to write me, Mother, I’d love to have her. And Marnie, too, those queer scrawls of hers are awfully amusing.
Your affectionate son,
Herb