TRANSCRIPT
V-MAIL DATED 4-26-44
Dear Mom,
Hope this will find you feeling allright. I’m still at the same place and I’m doing fine.
I haven’t sent you that watch I spoke of in my other letter yet but am going to soon as I get a chance or another day off. I’m going to school now.
I guess it’s quite lonesome for you now that Sis is in college. Does dad stay at home now??
If Mary E. needs any money for her course this summer tell her I want her to use the allotment checks I’m sending her.
Did you ever see the piece in the Louisville Times about me?
I’ll close for this time & write Lee a few lines. Have you heard from her yet??? I haven’t. How is she?
Tell everyone hello & write real soon & real often.
Your loving Son,
Earl S. [*]
[*] Beginning in his letter to his mother from 4-18-44, Earl alters his middle initial (actually “D.”) at the end of his letters to various other initials. This is because Earl is attempting to use his middle initial to gradually spell out where he is stationed so that his family knows where he is – something that would usually be censored in such letters. This is the same method that Earl talks about in his letter to his mother on 3-28-44. Earl eventually spells out “Belfast,” as in Belfast, Northern Ireland.