April 7, 1942 Dear Audrey
Day 7 and things are looking up. Spoiler alert: he will get a pay increase from $21 to $42. It's going to make life so much easier. And bonus, the food is not too bad. Fried chicken does sound good. And it’s only 3 weeks until he can get a 24-hour pass. They’ll work out the logistics of getting together. Not sure if this is another picture he references but I can’t find this picture of the boys from Natick either. Note: can he even afford a new Easter suit? He might just mean his uniform. I bet his hair looks great. I think Mom getting a job at P&W (Pratt and Whitney) is very cool. She mentioned being a receptionist and having to escort visitors all over the building. I wonder how much she got paid? Minimum wage is about $.30 per hour. I think they still have a headquarters in Hartford, Connecticut - I'll reach out and see what happens.
Original Letter:
Transcript follows.
Boston Globe - April 7th
I continue to be impressed with the level of detail the Boston Globe writers provide. There seems to be a lot of fires in Boston. A terrible 5-alarm fire breaks out and the smoke darkens the sky meanwhile the the fighting and the war marches on. At the bottom, those G.A.R. men are veterans of the Civil War! Yes, that Civil War!
The young men of the G.A.R. - the only five remaining who wore the Union blue colors, describe ways they can help in the war effort and encourage others to help as well. Note: the Artistic Shoppe ad reminds me that Mom's sister, Emily has a hair salon in Boston. Not sure if she advertised but those are very reasonable prices, I think.
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April 7, 1942 (transcript)
Btry H – 9th C.A. - Fort Banks
Dear Audrey,
I got your letter this afternoon and I was very glad to get it. I was worried about you. I was worried about you, and I was worried about your getting a job at P & W and I was worried about the car. Just how much does this job pay you? You don't make it sound very good. And just to set you right on my pay, I'm only making $21 a month. There hasn't been any notice to the effect that a private will receive $42 a month. I guess those things take time to go through. In fact it wasn’t official that our mail would go thru free until yesterday (Monday).
I think I can send you $10 or $11 a month and if I do get $42 it will be fairly easy for us - for a while at least. I was going to sign an allotment for you each month but once you sign it you can't change it. So I decided to wait and see what it costs me during the month. So far there have been certain small items to buy that after a while run into the money.
Did Tony sell his car? I wrote him a letter the other day. I received his wife's letter this morning before I got yours. When Laura was over Sunday she took some snapshots of me in my new Easter suit and so maybe she will send you one. We had picture taken of just the boys from Natick the other day. From now on you probably wouldn't like a picture of me because of the way my hair looks. The company barber gave me a G.D. haircut and it was kind of drastic. Maybe if I keep my hat on no one will notice (my hair was beginning to fall out anyway).
If you still have Elmer’s address send it to me? The food here is getting pretty good and Sunday my conscious bothered me a little. They had fried chicken and they kept forcing it on me. I felt as if they should have given a check. We can't go out of the fort for 3 weeks and then after that I start taking my turn for a 24-hour pass with over 200 men. They let out about 10 men a night and so it would take about 20 days probably a little less for me to get a pass. A pass is good from 5:00 o’clock one night to 5:00 o’clock the next. I think the best thing to do is for me to come down there when I get a pass. You should be able to figure when your day off comes. What hours do you work? However, I can have visitors at the main gate any day and all day Sunday. I can stand on the sidewalk outside the gate at talk to visitors. It isn't quite as bad as jail.
Please tell Mrs. V.A. Sercolutani that her little letter was very nice and also exciting. It was exciting because getting a letter from her and not hearing from you made me think that something was wrong. I thought that you had taken up with one of those negro soldiers and that you had moved into a trailer with two or three of them. If you do that, I won't have to send you any money. In fact, you will be able to send me money.
While we are on the subject, I'll tell you how they wake up in the morning. The sergeant comes running in and shouts “Come on you rookies! Drop your cocks and grab your socks! unquote oops! How did that line get in here? I must have been thinking I was writing to one of the boys.
Well, sweetheart I'll close because it's getting close to bedtime (9:30). Even if I do get to bed early, my average sleep is not too good because we get up so early and usually they wake us for something. If it isn't a real ‘alert’ alarm they get us up in the gun pits for drill.
You know dear I love you very much and whenever I think of you this place is hell and so I try not to think of you too much. But that is impossible. Everything about the army reminds me of you and what we were before. Give a little love the love I'm sending to Vicky this time and tell her I owe her a letter.
Love
Leonard
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Next letter is April 9th, 1942
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