05 February, 2011

05 February, 1944

438th AAA AW BN
APO 527 % Postmaster, N.Y.
England
5 February, 1944     1745
Dearest darling Wilma -

I have just finished my evening meal and I’m ready to say ‘hello’ again. I didn’t eat much for supper dear – because I thought we’d eat at the Copley later, but then I remembered I forgot to make reservations, so we’d better put it off.

Today I did a bit of traveling around in the morning and got back here for lunch. In view of our coming inspection next week I thought it wise to conduct a comprehensive review of various subject matters. We started at 1330 and continued almost until 1700. I think we accomplished quite a bit.

Late yesterday, darling, I got a swell letter from you – written Jan. 13th. You mentioned that Mary had brought you one of my letters to the store. It was nice of her to do it, Sweetheart, and thank her for me. Dearest – it was a sweet letter and very thoughtful – and if you are trying to endear yourself to me, darling, you can’t imagine how much you are succeeding. Gosh – I love you so much and so hard, I don’t know what to do, except to tell you about it. You thrill me beyond anything I have ever experienced just by your sincere expression in words, of your love for me. Do you know what I mean, dear? Just to see in words written by someone so dear to me – gives me the warmest, most stimulating sensation I have ever had. We seem so close to each other in our letters, closer almost than when I last saw you, and yet normally so. It has all been natural, steady and sincere between us, and darling your love and mine must end in happiness for both of us. I surprise myself in writing this way – which I admit was most foreign to me before I met you dear. I hope I don’t sound gushy. I don’t feel so, but then – it’s hard to put feelings like this into words and yet have them retain their full meaning.

In connection with your work, dear, my brother wrote that he thought you were working three nights a week. Is that true? Are you sure you’re not working too hard? I couldn’t help laugh at your father’s predicament with the locked car – although I know it wasn’t very funny at the time. The fact is I laughed because it has happened to me and I remember how disconcerted I was. That’s the trouble with General Motor’s cars. By the way, dearest, I still haven’t heard when you go to work, when you get thru, how you go etc. I try to fit you into each part of the day, darling and if you’re in a streetcar at a certain hour – I want to be able to picture you there.

Tomorrow, dear, I’m giving another long review. Tonite – after I finish this letter – I’m going to relax and read a novel by Kenneth Roberts – ‘Oliver Wiswell’ – I believe I mentioned it to you before.

Well, Sweetheart, that’s all for now – but before closing I want you to know again how much I love the sweetness and sincerity of your letters, and therefore – of you. I shall try to be the same, darling. Until tomorrow – and eventually for always, dear. You have

All my love
Greg

* TIDBIT *

about Kenneth Roberts and Oliver Wiswell


Kenneth Roberts on the Cover
Time, 25 November, 1940


In the 25 November, 1940 issue of TIME, a review of Oliver Wiswell and its author, Kenneth Roberts, was featured. As mentioned in a previous letter from Greg, his intern friend at Beverly Hospital, Ken Cuneo, was Kenneth Robert's doctor in Kennebunk, Maine. Excerpts of this article (taken out of order) can be read below.

Kenneth Roberts's respect for cold facts, his tirelessness in tracking down historical obscurities and his fearlessness in publishing what he finds, have resulted in some shocking reversals of U. S. cultural myths. In two of his books, Roberts has heroized traitor Benedict Arnold. This week the same qualities resulted in another first-class historical shocker.

"Oliver Wiswell is a sustained and uncompromising report of the American Revolution from the Tory viewpoint. As a story, Oliver Wiswell is one of the best yarns Novelist Roberts has spun. It is packed with people, battles, sudden flights, escapes, rail-riding mobs, secret service, forlorn defenses, intrigue, massacres, exile, and there is the usual restrained Roberts love story. There are also great scenes: the headlong flight by sea of thousands of Tory refugees and British troops from Boston; the heroic stupidity of the repeated British frontal attacks at Bunker Hill, seen through Tory eyes from Charlestown windows and roof tops.

The novel's plot is simple. Son of a distinguished Massachusetts Tory lawyer, Oliver Wiswell comes home from Yale to find himself caught in the early stages of the American Revolution. When he rescues Tory Printer Thomas Buell from a mob that has tarred and feathered him, Wiswell has already taken sides. By the time a sadder and wiser Wiswell starts a new life in Canada years later, he has fled from Boston to Halifax to New York to London to Paris, back to New York, and down to Virginia in search of Burgoyne's lost army. Most of the novel reports Wiswell's adventures in all these places as a British spy.

Its 836 pages are sustained by Novelist Roberts' wrathful consciousness that while history is always written by the victors, a historical romancer sometimes has a chance to tell the truth. Roberts tells the truth (as he sees it) about the lost cause of American loyalism with as much passion as if he himself had been tarred and feathered by a Massachusetts mob.

Until Kenneth Roberts was 40, he seemed perfectly content as a newspaperman. Out of Cornell (where he had edited the Widow), he went to work on the Boston Post, where he stayed eight years as reporter, feature writer and humorous columnist. He went to Manhattan for brief spells on Puck and the old Life. Then World War I took him to Siberia as a captain in the military intelligence. Thus began nine years of roving in which he covered Europe, Asia and Washington, D. C. for the Saturday Evening Post. Twelve years ago Kenneth Roberts was a top-flight U. S. foreign correspondent. Then he settled down to write novels.

Among other books, key historical novels by Roberts and their topics include:
  • Arundel (1929) - The American Revolution through the Battle of Quebec
  • The Lively Lady (1931) - War of 1812
  • Rabble in Arms (1933) - Sequel to Arundel; the American Revolution through the Battles of Saratoga
  • Captain Caution (1934) - War of 1812
  • Northwest Passage (1937) - French and Indian War and the Carver expedition
  • Oliver Wiswell (1940) - The American Revolution from a Loyalist's perspective, from the Siege of Boston to the United Empire Loyalists
  • Lydia Bailey (1947) - The Haitian Revolution and the First Barbary War
  • Boon Island (1955) - 1710 shipwreck on Boon Island, Maine
In 1957, two months before his death, Roberts received a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation "for his historical novels which have long contributed to the creation of greater interest in our early American history."

No comments:

Post a Comment