Sgt Stanley W Safford
39539976
5th
Auxiliary Surgical Group
Dodd
Field
Ft
Sam Houston
Texas
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October 10, 1943
My dear Mother:
It
is raining outside today and it is beginning to dampen down the dust and wash
the dust from the beginning to smell and look a little better.
Went
into town yesterday and had dinner at a very nice cafeteria and after that
went to a show which I thought very good
and you very likely will think the same when you see it. “Johnnie Come Lately”[1]
with James Cagney.
I
have seen two shows in the past week, which is more than I had seen in the
previous two months. The other one I
speak of is “The Constant Nymph”[2]
(the one you had seen) which was very good. Mrs.
Tedesco and myself went to dinner at an Italia place here and after that we
went t the show. In all we had a very
enjoyable evening and the dinner was very good even tho I did get some of it on
my shirt, which I had just put on clean that evening. Gladys
was planning on going to dinner with us but we received the news that her house
had burned down the night before so she called and said that she would be
unable to come along. Fortunately I had
not as yet given her the little Redwood vase or it would have been gone and she
said it would be something for her to start again with.
Enclosed
you will find a money order for twenty dollars which will be part payment on
what I owe you. The balance will come
later and my next check will be a little larger anyway. I am sorry that I am so tardy in paying you.
I
received a letter from Ray Coates a
couple days ago. He was home on furlough
from the 1st to 15th September and is now stationed at Camp Mystic[3]
which is about 15 miles from here and he has been asked to help organize the
Special Service office there by the lead of Special Services in this area.
It
may turn into something good for him. It
is a camp for convalescing patients. We now
have about 400 of them here at FSH. They are keeping them in some of the large
barracks.
Also
received a letter from Alvin Whitney
now T/5 and he had also been home on a furlough. He as always had a lot of interesting news
and he is planning on coming down one of these week-ends.
Today
I received a letter from Marshall
and he is starting back to school now and he speaks as tho he were not too
happy there because of the attitude of the people etc.
I
certainly feel sorry for him in his present position. He certainly wrote a nice long letter and as
always in his style quite nice. I am
about the same as yourself when it comes to looking ahead I never plan on
anything because if I do I am very apt to be quite disappointed. And as every day goes by my patience become
quite stronger and I live with the thought in mind of keeping busy and waiting. I suppose that is why I work so hard here and
why I am always on the run. Yes, I can
well understand what you mean that perhaps is another reason why I do not have
to go to town and get drunk. I keep
myself busy all the time and don’t allow myself to become idle. That is also a reason why my money goes so
rapidly.
I
wanted to more or less surprise you about the Sgt’cy and I did nothing other than
put the return on Jay’s letter the same as yours. It did not coma as a surprise to me tho, and
I have earned it where a lot of them did not.
And I have been told that it is a shame that I can go no farther.
As
for the OCS, I have just about given
up hopes and the reason is that they are really having a shake-up in the
schools and are changing things quite a bit.
So
maybe it won’t ever come my way. But
when I give up hopes it will come.
Major Grubin here in P&T Office says now that Major Skinner can have the job when he
gets back, and he will go on DS to the hospital to study, so maybe it won’t be
so bad after all. He is a pretty good
person even tho he is a Jew.
The
dog operations were just experimental and I did not exactly approve of the last
two since it is giving the dogs a lot of pain and they are very slow to
recover.
We
are expecting to start wearing the wool about the fifteenth of October although
nothing definite as yet. The nights here
have been quite cold and we have to wear a field jacket in the morning to keep
warm.
This
last week they took twelve men from us to use on a train of trucks going to San
Francisco POC. They will be used as
guards and will have a layover of three or four days in California. Of course I never get in on anything of that
type. Only Mexicans and the rest of the
louts get that type of thing.
Well
the afternoon draws on and I still have some work to do on some more lists and
be glad to get them done for we have been working on them for three days.
John Langstadt is in Denver and he expects to be leaving soon. I well have to write him also very soon or he
will get away.
I
am wondering if Dad had any luck deer hunting or if he came back empty handed.
How
is Aunt Nina getting along. Has she had her operation yet?
Well
I close giving you all my love as ever,
Your
son,
[3] Camp Mystic
is a summer camp for girls on the South Fork of the Guadalupe River three miles
southwest of Hunt in central Kerr County. It was established in 1926 by E. J.
(Doc) Stewart, former head football coach at the University of Texas, who had
founded Camp Stewart for boys in the same area two years earlier. Camp Mystic,
known originally as Stewart's Camp for Girls, provided facilities for outdoor
activities and instruction in roping, marksmanship, music, painting, and drama.
In 1937 the camp was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Gilespie Stacy and in 1968 was
owned by a group of investors that included Stacy family members. The camp has
remained in continuous operation since its founding, except for the years
1943–45, when it was leased by the federal government as a convalescent camp
for army air corps veterans of World War II.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frank R.
Gilliland, Kerrville, Texas: A Social and Economic History (M.A. thesis,
Stephen F. Austin State College, 1951). Kerrville Daily Times, February 25,
1968.
Rebecca J. Herring,
"CAMP MYSTIC," Handbook of Texas Online - http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/xvc01
- accessed January 31, 2012. Published
by the Texas State Historical Association.
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