6-23-42.
Dearest Mama-
One of the nurses came by this A. M. To tell me her dream. She dreamed you was here visiting me & that you, A, was fairly tall & real attractive & the sweetest thing that ever was. Said she thought all the girls were just crazy about you – & she wondered if you looked anything like you did in her dream-.
I don’t know why she should dream of you because she is no special friend of mine, & I’ve had very few conversations with her. Hope her dream has no ill omen. Sometimes I have a leery of dreams__ you haven’t written for some time so maybe it means I’ll get a letter soon.
Everything is fairly quiet here. I’m losing some of the boys this a.m. their company is leaving to parts unknown. It’s funny but they never tell a soul where they are going. The last ones went to the West Coast, & lots of them are going on over the pond__ they are using these balloons in convoy protection & even our truck convoys over there-
Oh this war. I often wonder when my patients go out where they will land & etc.-
I have a ward full of Jews now & do they ever get on my nerves but I guess if I knew they were going to be sent over anyways soon I’d feel more tender toward them too _.
I’m very anxious for Saturday because my Robert will be here at 12 o’clock noon. When I get off I am going to be happy to see him __ he is also good to write & call me by phone. That helps to pass the long days down in this lonesome place. __
There is two new camps opening real soon, one almost in Nashville & one at Clarksville Tennessee – & I hear some of us will be transferred – I sure would like to get in the one nearest Nashville then maybe I could get home once & a while_
You never wrote word one about me going to see Anne on my leave_. If I get transferred I probably won’t even get a leave. We are expecting Capt. Glovin. She is over all the 4th Corps nurses _ we don’t know for sure when she will arrive but dreading her.
My excitement of late has been picture shows & sleep_
Kiss the babies for me & right___
All my love Margaret
I hear from Ralph, Frank, Rog & Frank V. real often__they all seem very happy__I sent Rog cigs for his birthday.__
Margaret is one of Roger’s older sisters and A, of course, is their mother. She was a Registered Nurse and, like Roger, had enlisted in the US Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor
Margaret was a Knoxville resident prior to the war, and had been dating a man named Robert Loyd Craig who also lived in Knoxville. Robert was born in Morristown, and was an only child. He was only two years old when his father died, after which his mother moved to Knoxville and worked as a seamstress.
Robert studied to become a chemist and worked for the water department in Knoxville. He later worked for the US Department of Mines.
Robert’s mother lived with him until her death. He never married.
These young men are probably Margaret’s cousins Ralph Livesay and Frank Jennings, brother Roger, and good friend, Frank Venable.
Camp Tyson was the nation’s only World War II barrage balloon training center. Established at Paris, Tennessee in Henry County.
The camp trained servicemen to fly, build, and repair barrage balloons, which were helium- or hydrogen-filled balloons measuring thirty-five feet in diameter and eighty-five feet in length used in aerial coastal defense. Made of a two-ply cotton fabric impregnated by synthetic rubber and lofted nine thousand to twelve thousand feet into the air, the balloons were nicknamed “big bags,” “air whales,” and “sky elephants.” The massive quantities of rubber needed to construct the balloons drove up the cost of construction to between five thousand and ten thousand dollars apiece and became a factor in wartime rationing of rubber products and tires. (from The Encyclopedia of Tennessee)
Japan
Germany
The most recent issue of the Claiborne Progress gives an overview of what Roger and Margaret’s friends and family were reading – and doing – for the war effort back home. Past weeks had emphasized saving scrap metal, but now the focus was on the need for rubber. Tire rationing, and special circumstance exemptions. Auto Stamps. Despite the fact that so many aspects of life were changing for the folks back home, civic and social life continued.
From the Progress published on June 17, 1942:
