February 22, 43
Dear Mother:
What do you think of my new stationary. You are the second person who I have written to on it. The other one was to Muriel and I will mail them both the same time only I will mail yours air mail and send hers free and I want you to let me know which one gets there first. I found out the other day that the Air Mail goes North through Fort Worth then over to El Paso and on the California so in that case the Air Mail may not travel faster than the other. I am rather curious.
Which ink do you like best on this stationary the red or the blue I am using in my pen. I just could not resist buying it. Or do you think I am rather silly over stationary. The librarian here who I have become rather well acquainted with let me use the red ink. There are certainly some very nice books and stationary stores here in San Antonio. I saw a book the other day I would sure like to have in fact two, both of them by J J Audubon. The one on bird prints and the other on flower prints. If I continue to want them I will get them and send them home. What do you think of the idea?
The Camp Barkeley Boys are leaving next Sunday so I understand I do not believe that I am going because of the teaching affair. In fact I rather like it here and I would not mind being stationed here permanently that is of course for the duration. Although the heat may be too much for me in the summer. Although it is quite nice here now, the trees all coming into leaf and signs of Spring all around.
The other day I saw some daffodils in bloom and they were sure nice. They reminded me quite a bit of my own.
You know the little red spots I spoke of in my last letter, well the doctor tells me that it is pityiriasis rosacea, harmless non contagious type of disease and the pay off came when he told me he didn’t know where I got it and that they know of no treatment. Then a nurse at the hospital who knows the head nurse in the operating room told here that she knows of cases that come to her allergy clinic that it is quite often caused by linen or the water here.
Well anyway after complaining to the high heavens about my shoes the doctors gave me a written note to the supply office to exchange for some more larger ones. I now have 8 ½ C and he wrote down 9-D which is more like it I think. By the way do you still have my ration book. It may come in handy in some way.
And another good piece of news is that I do not have to pay tax on my army salary of last year. Which is quite a relief for I have enough to pay as it is, don’t you think so?
February 23
Well here I am back at the letter again and I intend to finish it this time and get it well on its way.
It sure has been warm here today and they are still trying to enforce the wearing of wool shirts, although in looking around I find there are quite a few of them being worn.
I also found out that I am for sure going to be here for another one month as an instructor in the practice ward. That news sure made me very happy as I wanted to stay here for a while longer.
We sure had some very interesting operations today, on one of them a hemorrhoidectomy. They removed a piece of flesh and fat around five by five and about two inches deep and they had an interesting herniated vein in the abdomen and I saw the beginning of another one on the back.
I went down the hall to the ward today with the nurses and intended on being of a … help and bringing him back for them. Well anyway after I got down there they decided to give him a retention enema so she asked me to give it for her and the both of them stood there and asked him to relax and watched me. I never would have thought that I would be doing such things, did you? The enema contained a sleeping narcotic of some kind and he was to sleep before we got back to surgery.
You ask what they intend to do with the boy that has the tumor on the brain well they are going to operate again. I also stood by and wiped the major’s brow today while he was operating. I watched a case today on a major and he was quite nice before and after the operation, thanked me etc.
I for some reason looked toward to receiving a letter from you today but suppose I will get one from you in the next couple of days. I sure realize you have your hands full both at home and garage and it surprises me to think you get as much done as you do. And I sure appreciate the nice long letters you write,
Have I mentioned to you that I sent Aunt Maibelle a couple more elephants the other day. In a previous letter I asked her if I could send her anything from S.A and she replied with her Valentine card to me “If you find any stray elephants without a home you can get them and send me a bill for them”. Although I didn’t send her a bill I think and hope she likes them.
I am looking forward to hearing from Marshall. Have you heard from him yet?
I got a very nice letter from Esther the other day and she was mentioning having big washing etc. I sure feel sorry for her.
I believe I will answer her very soon on this stationary.
I also owe Mrs. Sherwood a letter (Aunt Dell) otherwise I am not very far behind on my mail and I hope to have more time yet with my new occupation when my work is once in the hospital. I think I shall like the job of instruction for a while anyway.
I think I am going to be rather unhappy for a couple of days with Whitney going and the other acquaintances leaving. Whitney is the boy that came from Washington and I have grown to like him very well. Of course the army is very much that way. Well I had better close now for it is very near closing time here. So goodbye and good night with lots of love from your son.
Stanley
March 2, 1943
Dear Mother,
Well here I am again several days behind in writing you and I keep telling myself to write but there seems to be so many distractions and there has been so many things happening here of late that they are very hard to recall and to tell you of them and it perhaps will take a couple letters to describe them all to you.
I received your letter today and was very glad to hear from you and to hear that you have received the box and hope you find the grapefruit good as some of them that I have had and the cards may prove of interest to you. Your questions about Fort Sam Houston. I will answer another day when I finish reading about it. It dates back to before the Spanish American war I understand.
I was one of the lucky ones to be able to get in and see two brain operations and they were certainly interesting even though the agony the two patients went through was not so interesting. And the noises some of them made were terrible although the operations were very interesting they became very tiring. The one lasted 5 ½ hours and it was on the boy I spoke of and they discovered that he has a tumor at the base of the brain which cannot be removed and which was stopping the flow of blood from the head but he put a tube in and it may never cause him any trouble. And the other one only took four and one half hours. The captain drilled only five holes in the man’s head and then sawed between the holed and took quite a large piece of skull out. That man was able to talk today upon my return to the hospital, but the first one is not recovered as yet fully of course he was so bad off before.
The hospital train brings in the war casualties ever so often and there was one from Santa Barbara here today. You see they evacuate all of the important ones from the coasts inland whenever possible.
Well I felt rather sad Monday because the bulk of the friends that I came from Barkeley left early Monday morning just as I was getting up. They slipped some of their baggage out Monday. Some went to Colorado Springs Colorado and others went to Louisiana and Alabama and Whitney went to Camp Bowie still here in Texas just where he did not want to go. Camp Bowie is about 80 miles from Barkeley and from what I hear it is about as bad as Barkeley.
Well we awoke this morning to find it was thundering and lightening and I was looking forward very anxiously to having a good rain out of it because I have not seen a real good rain since I have been in Texas, but it just rained a little and finished there after all the expectation I had built up but then one of those cold Texas winds came up and has been blowing hard and cold ever since and is now quite cold outside now, in fact I had to wear my overall I am going to enclose some clippings from the paper here which you may be interested in. And I thought Spring was coming.
I inquired at the Internal Revenue Office here the other day and they told me my type of Income Tax form did not have to be notarized because the Sargent told me it did not have to be done so I inquired about it. I am enclosing the form with my letter and am disgusted with the whole affair and this amount of course the tax bothers more people than I.
March 3, 1943.
The wind blew all night and was as cold as could be this morning and the lieutenant who is officer of the day here this morning still ordered exercises and the company commands came out and made them much shorter and the same lieutenant turned the heat off as usual last night and the barracks became very cold.
The barracks were sure quiet when I went home last night. The lower floor only has two on it and the upper floor only has about 6-8 on it and that is out of about 20 beds which make up a full capacity barracks.
Well, my first class does not start until the tenth and even then I will only teach every other class. In other words it will be just a nice luxurious job until I leave here that is as long as I have this job. Probably the only thing that will bother me will be when it comes my turn to stay with the ones that fail the test for some evening for two hours and that is to make sure they study. During my ten free days we are able of we want to, to go over to the hospital. We went over yesterday in one of those command cars and we drove up to the front door of hospital and got out and went in the front door.
The man I spoke of as carrying his bottle to class in a briefcase last month. Well he returned this morning after being gone two days and I suppose they will finally get rid of him this time I hope.
Well the mailman’s job is now mine again and I am not too glad of it either. I raised such a rumpus about them giving the mail to anyone and everyone and I guess the postal sergeant decided to give it to someone else so he went to the First Sgt with it and he in turn appointed a new one. I also notice that the mail goes only to one person now and that is the mailman who in turn signs for it.
Well yesterday the corporal asked me to take the job back. I guess I was the only one that would put order into it.
I am sitting at the desk here in the practice ward desk trying to finish this letter and get it well on its way.
We are planning on going over to the nut ward this afternoon which should be very interesting. I believe I shall close now and write more tomorrow. Quite amusing about M & Nelson.
Love,
Stanley
Between Nov. 1942 and Aug. 1945, Stanley W Safford wrote around 180 letters to his mother. These were found neatly preserved in the order they were received, in his old bedroom at his parents'. They were wrapped with a green ribbon. Stanley was one of the first Army medics. He spent 19 months at Fort Sam Houston, TX training other medics. His group was attached to the Ninth Army in the Summer of 1944. His letters give a front row seat to a medic's life during WWII.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
February 18, 1943
February 18, 1943
Dear Mother,
Well here I am at work again and we again have nothing to do.
Of course they do the same old thing here, that is a well known army habit of having twice as many men as they need to do a thing and consequently we are idle half of our time here.
I have not done much here this evening except wash a few instruments and put them away, among them Major Millington’s, which are all European made with his name or initials on them and they are really nice looking instruments and (they all have to be oiled etc).
We also have a Captain here that has his own instruments and they are all brain instruments. He also has special cuffs for his gowns because his arms are rather long.
I walked in here Monday and there were about 25 people working in here and not a one of them paying any attention to us and we stood here about one hour before being seen. I have seen only two operations and they were both cysts one of them on the leg of one patient and the other one the arm of the other and neither one of them bothered me any. Watching the pain on the patients bothered me more than the operation. They had three to remove on the first patient but only took one because of the pain it caused the patient. I stood at the patient’s head during the operation and I think he rather enjoyed me being there. He said he didn’t see how I could stand there and look at it. He was 22 years old. They operated on one today that was really a mess for they had operated on him once for ulcers and removed half of his stomach, well he had done well for a while and then turned towards the worse and then today they reopened him and took out about a pint of pus. I did not go in because they had it in the small operating room, and it seemed that all the other doctors in the place wanted to see it too so a result even the corps men did not get in and it also smelled. They washed down everything with cresol(?) after the operation. Some of the brain operations last from four to 6-7-8 hours and quite often he has the radio going also which sure surprised me. They have changed the commander of the army in Australia and he is the former General Krueger of here at San Antonio and the new one is Lt Gen. Hodges whom I saw drive by in his car of course chauffeured, on my way to the hospital. A couple days ago a rash appeared of a few little small red spots on my neck and arms. They are practically gone now but tomorrow when I go to complain of my shoes I will ask him what it is and he will probably tell me it is too much sugar or something. They do not itch or anything of that type. Some of the food here is exceptionally rich and I may have eaten too much candy also although I have not eaten any recently because of the heat. I have just had to get up and take some material out of the auto-claves which has lots in sterilizing through a method of pressure steam heat. They seemed at first rather hard for me to work but they are quite easy now although I am running them this evening one of the lazy ones just left them in my hands. We have four of them here besides the other sterilizers in all they manage to keep the room quite warm. In fact too warm. I believe Spring is coming to San Antonio because most of the trees here are all coming out and the devil grass lawns are beginning to come to life. They certainly have some pretty birds around here and they can quite a few of them sing quite well. We are getting quite a few of the war casualties here: schrapnel etc. There is a hospital train which makes trips to the coast for them. I saw some very pretty stationary the other day up town and just had to have some so I will try and write you a letter on some of it for you. I am sure you will like it.
I am wondering just what kind of pay I will get this time. I forgot to ask when I signed the pay book this time. How is the yard coming? How is the cymbidium coming along? And did the Brussels sprouts ever amount to anything? Are the chickens laying very well now and are the pullets laying well? I sent my order to Mr. Matson the other day. Now I shall have to write Miss Mosher directions. I am afraid I shall have to close now for it is time to go home and I shall shop this in the mail box on my way home. How is your arm coming along?
Good night with lots of love,Of course they do the same old thing here, that is a well known army habit of having twice as many men as they need to do a thing and consequently we are idle half of our time here.
I have not done much here this evening except wash a few instruments and put them away, among them Major Millington’s, which are all European made with his name or initials on them and they are really nice looking instruments and (they all have to be oiled etc).
We also have a Captain here that has his own instruments and they are all brain instruments. He also has special cuffs for his gowns because his arms are rather long.
I walked in here Monday and there were about 25 people working in here and not a one of them paying any attention to us and we stood here about one hour before being seen. I have seen only two operations and they were both cysts one of them on the leg of one patient and the other one the arm of the other and neither one of them bothered me any. Watching the pain on the patients bothered me more than the operation. They had three to remove on the first patient but only took one because of the pain it caused the patient. I stood at the patient’s head during the operation and I think he rather enjoyed me being there. He said he didn’t see how I could stand there and look at it. He was 22 years old. They operated on one today that was really a mess for they had operated on him once for ulcers and removed half of his stomach, well he had done well for a while and then turned towards the worse and then today they reopened him and took out about a pint of pus. I did not go in because they had it in the small operating room, and it seemed that all the other doctors in the place wanted to see it too so a result even the corps men did not get in and it also smelled. They washed down everything with cresol(?) after the operation. Some of the brain operations last from four to 6-7-8 hours and quite often he has the radio going also which sure surprised me. They have changed the commander of the army in Australia and he is the former General Krueger of here at San Antonio and the new one is Lt Gen. Hodges whom I saw drive by in his car of course chauffeured, on my way to the hospital. A couple days ago a rash appeared of a few little small red spots on my neck and arms. They are practically gone now but tomorrow when I go to complain of my shoes I will ask him what it is and he will probably tell me it is too much sugar or something. They do not itch or anything of that type. Some of the food here is exceptionally rich and I may have eaten too much candy also although I have not eaten any recently because of the heat. I have just had to get up and take some material out of the auto-claves which has lots in sterilizing through a method of pressure steam heat. They seemed at first rather hard for me to work but they are quite easy now although I am running them this evening one of the lazy ones just left them in my hands. We have four of them here besides the other sterilizers in all they manage to keep the room quite warm. In fact too warm. I believe Spring is coming to San Antonio because most of the trees here are all coming out and the devil grass lawns are beginning to come to life. They certainly have some pretty birds around here and they can quite a few of them sing quite well. We are getting quite a few of the war casualties here: schrapnel etc. There is a hospital train which makes trips to the coast for them. I saw some very pretty stationary the other day up town and just had to have some so I will try and write you a letter on some of it for you. I am sure you will like it.
I am wondering just what kind of pay I will get this time. I forgot to ask when I signed the pay book this time. How is the yard coming? How is the cymbidium coming along? And did the Brussels sprouts ever amount to anything? Are the chickens laying very well now and are the pullets laying well? I sent my order to Mr. Matson the other day. Now I shall have to write Miss Mosher directions. I am afraid I shall have to close now for it is time to go home and I shall shop this in the mail box on my way home. How is your arm coming along?
Your son,
Stanley
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