438th AAA AW BN
APO 578 % Postmaster, N.Y.
England
10 April, 1944 0930
Dearest Sweetheart –
Again yesterday – I received two up-to-date letters – one from you written March 29 and one from your mother – the same date. Your mother – and mine-to-be is a perfect darling in the way she writes me – and if anyone were ever made to feel welcome into a family, dear, your folks are certainly making me feel that way.
Your own letter of the same date, Sweetheart, only shows how confusion must result when a principal party involved is not around – meaning myself. Were I around, dear, I should have known what you liked and gone about getting it for you in my own way. If things have been confused, darling, and I gather that they have been, excuse it – as I know you are. Why in the world my mother should suddenly suggest that you look for a ring yourself – is beyond me – particularly when my father had written me what he had intended doing. The only possible suggestion for her action was that she wants you to have something you’ll like and she must have figured that was the best way to do it. I hope by now that something has been accomplished – and by my father, without the necessity of troubling your folks – dear – because that’s the way it should be.
I was amused at your reference to Barbara and Steve – and their being excited about us. I keep thinking of them as mere kiddos – and actually they’re growing up to be real people – to wit – they are actually picking out names for our children. Their selections weren’t so bad at that – although I’ll bet several other factors will enter the situation when the blessed time comes.
Wilma with Greg's nephew and niece, Steve and Barbara
Yes, darling, I am excited – and unfortunately I can’t share it with anyone, not really, anyway. For the fact is that every one in the Army has his own particular worry or pleasure or problem – and anyone else’s is fundamentally not his concern. My excitement really comes in reading your letters in detail and reconstructing every possible scene in my mind’s eye; and in letters from your folks and mine – because, darling, I’m really living in Massachusetts and not in England, or so it seems anyway.
Yesterday, Sunday, was a very quiet day and I didn’t move out of the Castle all day. I read Time Magazine, some old funnies, a couple of articles in some medical journals and listened to the radio. I don’t really know what I’d do without the latter. Besides keeping us up to date with the news – no other single factor except for your letters, dear, has made me feel that I still belong in the U.S. Yesterday, for example, I was able to hear – at different times of the day – and much like a Sunday at home – Sammy Kaye, André Kostelanitz, Baby Snooks, Frank Morgan, and Jack Benny – and they try to put these programs on the air as close to possible to the times we used to hear them. If you sit back, close your eyes and dream – you can easily be carried back home – and darling, that’s what I do all the time – and without the radio. You are always in the picture – waiting for me and it is therefore perfect. Now that I’m to be engaged to you, darling, I don’t know how I can tell you more forcibly that I love you and miss you – but if there is a way, dear – I’m trying to do just that. I’m the happiest guy in the E.T.O. and you’ve made me so sweetheart.
My love to the folks – and to you – a special brand of love for always, darling
Again yesterday – I received two up-to-date letters – one from you written March 29 and one from your mother – the same date. Your mother – and mine-to-be is a perfect darling in the way she writes me – and if anyone were ever made to feel welcome into a family, dear, your folks are certainly making me feel that way.
Your own letter of the same date, Sweetheart, only shows how confusion must result when a principal party involved is not around – meaning myself. Were I around, dear, I should have known what you liked and gone about getting it for you in my own way. If things have been confused, darling, and I gather that they have been, excuse it – as I know you are. Why in the world my mother should suddenly suggest that you look for a ring yourself – is beyond me – particularly when my father had written me what he had intended doing. The only possible suggestion for her action was that she wants you to have something you’ll like and she must have figured that was the best way to do it. I hope by now that something has been accomplished – and by my father, without the necessity of troubling your folks – dear – because that’s the way it should be.
I was amused at your reference to Barbara and Steve – and their being excited about us. I keep thinking of them as mere kiddos – and actually they’re growing up to be real people – to wit – they are actually picking out names for our children. Their selections weren’t so bad at that – although I’ll bet several other factors will enter the situation when the blessed time comes.
Wilma with Greg's nephew and niece, Steve and Barbara
Yes, darling, I am excited – and unfortunately I can’t share it with anyone, not really, anyway. For the fact is that every one in the Army has his own particular worry or pleasure or problem – and anyone else’s is fundamentally not his concern. My excitement really comes in reading your letters in detail and reconstructing every possible scene in my mind’s eye; and in letters from your folks and mine – because, darling, I’m really living in Massachusetts and not in England, or so it seems anyway.
Yesterday, Sunday, was a very quiet day and I didn’t move out of the Castle all day. I read Time Magazine, some old funnies, a couple of articles in some medical journals and listened to the radio. I don’t really know what I’d do without the latter. Besides keeping us up to date with the news – no other single factor except for your letters, dear, has made me feel that I still belong in the U.S. Yesterday, for example, I was able to hear – at different times of the day – and much like a Sunday at home – Sammy Kaye, André Kostelanitz, Baby Snooks, Frank Morgan, and Jack Benny – and they try to put these programs on the air as close to possible to the times we used to hear them. If you sit back, close your eyes and dream – you can easily be carried back home – and darling, that’s what I do all the time – and without the radio. You are always in the picture – waiting for me and it is therefore perfect. Now that I’m to be engaged to you, darling, I don’t know how I can tell you more forcibly that I love you and miss you – but if there is a way, dear – I’m trying to do just that. I’m the happiest guy in the E.T.O. and you’ve made me so sweetheart.
My love to the folks – and to you – a special brand of love for always, darling
Greg.
* TIDBIT *
about The Baby Snooks Show
Fanny Bryce as Baby Snooks
about The Baby Snooks Show
Fanny Bryce as Baby Snooks
The following was excerpted from The Baby Snooks Show page on Wikipedia.
The Baby Snooks Show was an American radio program which began on CBS September 17, 1944 and aired on Sundays at 6:30pm. The show starred comedienne and Ziegfeld Follies alumna Fanny Brice as a mischievous young girl. Hanley Stafford was best known for his portrayal of Snooks' long-suffering, often-cranky father, Lancelot "Daddy" Higgins, who ended most shows by gently spanking his daughter for her misdeeds, such as planting a bees' nest at her mother's club meeting, cutting her father's fishing line into little pieces, ripping the fur off her mother's coat, inserting marbles into her father's piano and smearing glue on her baby brother.
Brice began doing her Baby Snooks character in vaudeville, as she recalled many years later: "I first did Snooks in 1912 when I was in vaudeville. At the time there was a juvenile actress named Baby Peggy and she was very popular. Her hair was all curled and bleached and she was always in pink or blue. She looked like a strawberry ice cream soda. When I started to do Baby Snooks, I really was a baby, because when I think about Baby Snooks it's really the way I was when I was a kid. On stage, I made Snooks a caricature of Baby Peggy."
By 1934 she was wearing her baby costume while appearing on Broadway in the Follies show. In 1940, she became a regular character on Maxwell House Coffee Time. In 1944, the character was given her own show, and during the 1940s, it became one of the nation's favorite radio situation comedies. Here is a recording from 4 November, 1943.
Brice began doing her Baby Snooks character in vaudeville, as she recalled many years later: "I first did Snooks in 1912 when I was in vaudeville. At the time there was a juvenile actress named Baby Peggy and she was very popular. Her hair was all curled and bleached and she was always in pink or blue. She looked like a strawberry ice cream soda. When I started to do Baby Snooks, I really was a baby, because when I think about Baby Snooks it's really the way I was when I was a kid. On stage, I made Snooks a caricature of Baby Peggy."
By 1934 she was wearing her baby costume while appearing on Broadway in the Follies show. In 1940, she became a regular character on Maxwell House Coffee Time. In 1944, the character was given her own show, and during the 1940s, it became one of the nation's favorite radio situation comedies. Here is a recording from 4 November, 1943.
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