“I fear I shall never arrive at the point where a letter from you doesn't cause the sun to shine brighter upon its arrival." So wrote a corporal in the American Expeditionary Forces in France to his wife at home in 1919.
Introduction
After fifteen years of undisturbed residence in my mother's letter box, which I had for safe keeping after her death, 177 letters written from May of 1918 to June the following year finally roused my curiosity and demanded my attention. As I read their wonderful letters, I met for the first time two people in their twenties, devoted to their country and to each other and their baby. I read of normal daily routines as well as life changing events in the lives of their parents and siblings, plus a faithfully censored account of World War I Army life.
John Myers and Eunice Ingham met when she moved from Laporte, a small town in northern Pennsylvania, to Camp Hill to teach music and art in the Camp Hill and Lemoyne Schools. John, a lawyer practicing in Lemoyne, was secretary of the School Board and the first person Eunice met upon arrival. They married in 1916 and welcomed their first child a year later. Although there is nothing written about his decision to enlist, later comments and those of others point to a great concern for peace in this country and justice in Europe. In a letter to Eunice's father, Frank Ingham, her uncle, Ellery Ingham, wrote:
“I am very glad to hear that John is all right. I have great admiration and respect for him. A man who has a wife and baby and enlists to serve his country is deserving of the very best that can be given. I predict that john will receive high awards. It is to men like him that the coming generation will look I think he is fine and true and noble and my hat is off to him and my house is open to him and his so long as I live and have a habitation and home." (undated)
This letter from the New York City lawyer to his country lawyer brother also spoke of Frank's recent election to the State House of Representatives, Ellery's good life in New York City, including riding in a Cadillac, but, alas, the pain of having his upper teeth extracted!
For the duration of the war a plan was developed for Eunice and ten month old Tommy to move in with Eunice's parents in Laporte where Tommy's grandmother, Henrietta Ingham, would care for the baby while Eunice taught school.
Camp Meade
John reported to Camp Meade, Maryland, May 25, 1918, having traveled by train with 29 "fellows" for whom he seemed to feel some responsibility, including loaning a towel to “a fellow named Markley whom we took out of jail to have him go with us. He [Markley] had nothing but what the Red Cross gave him and he certainly did need a bath." John was somewhat embarrassed by one young enlistee who called him Mr. Myers. He wrote that their first supper was "macaroni, creamed potatoes, applesauce and bread without butter "(25 May 1918) The new private listed seven "fine fellows" from Cumberland County, plus "the Lancaster County group, half of whom were also fine fellows but the other half must have been gathered up from pool halls and alleys.” There was also a Polish man who had been taken from Carlisle jail and who quickly landed in the guardhouse mainly because he wouldn't (or couldn't) communicate.
Referring with some passion to his enlistment, John wrote to Eunice: “I feel that I am indebted to your father and mother beyond even my thanks for the many things they have done for me. I shall not enumerate them. But having made it possible for one more soldier to enter the fight on the side of right and justice against all that seems bad and horrible, they can feel that they have done their bit for the civilization which means all to us and which like all things is attained and retained only at great cost” (27 May 1918).
One hundred years ago, in its first major projection of military power overseas, the United States was marshalling the force that President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed would “make the world safe for democracy.” Eventually, some two million Americans would enter combat in the “Great War” in Europe, helping to break a four-year stalemate and drive the Allied cause to victory.