Excerpts from her letters home, 1944-45
July 24, 1944
Dear Mother, Daddy, Butch, Freckles:
By now, you know that I am safe and sound in Great Britain - that the
impossible has happened and I won't be using those rubber boots in paddling
through the jungles. Instead, I'm juggling shillings and half crowns
and crouching on the floor in an artistic attitude of prayer when I
hear the wailing ups and downs of the siren. How long I'll be here,
I don't know, but much as I love London, I'd just as soon be out in
the country where the wind blows free. We were told at our port of embarkation
that the buss-bombs were "a bit of a nuisance" but my words
for them are much fruiter and stronger.
So far, it looks as if I'm getting Clubmobile, which pleases me no end,
although I won't be an able-bodied Recreational Worker as originally
planned, but I'm asking for it in preference to the lonely grass shack
or equally lonely igloo.
bivouac area. Photo by Farm Security Administration -
Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)
The Red Cross here is a magnificent thing - clubs all
over the place, efficiently staffed by Americans and British - in old
homes that are still going strong. The group with which I came over is
grand...
...if you feel like sending packages, soap, kotex and wool socks are in
order...
July 28, 1944
We are being assigned alphabetically (as usual) and I'm seriously considering
sending a memo to Washington recommending that hereafter, a list should
begin with Z's or else I'm going to change my name to Abigail Abbey (or
Aaron). Slowly but surely, we will eventually be issued our additional
equipment and we will be taught how to manufacture a mean doughnut and
a neat cup of coffee.
We are now living in a Red Cross dormitory, once a very lovely town house,
but now occupied by lots of wooden bunks, and I do mean wooden. Before
I was comfortable enough so that I had time to worry about the buzz bombs
- now - I don't even think about the things.