February 20, 1944

Sgt Stanley W Safford 39539976

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Fort Sam Houston

Texas

February 20, 1944

Dear Mother:

It has been quite a while since I wrote you so will try an get another on its way.

The weather turned quite cold a couple days ago and yesterday morning it was raining when we got up and is still doing so outside mow on off and on streaks.  As usual everything is quite muddy and therefore we get a lot of it inside.  I chopped a good pile of wood the other evening but it is about all gone now.  That seems to be about all we do here is keep wood in the stove and then we are still cold.

The wedding the other evening was a big success and everybody who is anybody was there.  Brigadier General Beach of Brooke General was there with his wife, mink coat and all, and there were several full colonels there and a lot of Lt Colonels and Majors.  There was also a Major WAC and a Major Nurse in attendance.  The bride was very beautifully gowned and the “Bride’s Maids” also wore civilian gowns.  The Lieutenant was quite nervous and white as a sheet.  The only reason for myself and the six or eight others of the enlisted men’s group going was merely to be seen there and other political reasons.

Someone here has the idea that they would like to have a bivouac to the “Gulf of Mexico Coast”.  They would either fly there or take trucks and are already laying elaborate plans for going, so we may end up by going on our bivouac there.

The new officers are already being called for.  We have lost four of them already.  They as a rule are a bunch of dopes as far as personality goes.

I had not been to town since my return trip so know no news of there.

You certainly do not have to think that you have to pay for my coming home.  Don’t you think that I enjoy coming home myself?

So you can just forget all about the money end of it.  It wasn’t all that expensive.  I still owe you for part of the last money which I borrowed.  I also intend on paying for the pictures of myself.

How is the rose doing which I transplanted?  Also what are the rest of the things doing, the cymbidium and all?

Have you heard from Aunt MaiBelle since we were out?

Was very sorry to hear of Aunt Nina getting a cold.  She certainly has one thing after another.

It is very nice to have the other Majors back here again.  Major Skinner is always nice to do things for.  And Major Grubin keeps us in tears all day with his pranks. We are starting an Officers’ Training Program tomorrow and that will keep us on the busy line for a while.  They are always on the run to the office here for some reason or the other.  They borrow and run off with things faster than we can keep tract of them.  One pleasure I get out of it is that they treat all these new officers about like the enlisted men, and some of them are quite insulted when they are treated so.  Major Grubin told one of them here that the job he had been given was going to cease when he was through using him in his Tng. Program, and then he could forget being an office and then he could forget being an officer and be a doctor again if he knew how.  The Capt. did not like that any too well.  They gave us some new identification tag chains the other day.  They are something new which the army is issuing and are supposed to be sterling silver.  They are quite nice looking and I was very much surprised to get them.

They are certainly cleaning out the post of all men who have been there any great length of time. Freddie while in the Library is going to be leaving soon and Sgt Elkins has been transferred to the Student Nurses course at Brooke General and will still have about two and a half months to finish.  He is so much happier where he now is.  He was getting quite tired of the Service School.

I have not heard from John Langstadt for quite a while.  Received a nice letter from Ray Coates the other day and he is still at camp Mystic rehabilitation center for the Air Corps.  He is coming in some evening soon and I will see him then.

My subscription to Time magazine has started and I am already behind in reading that but hope to catch up soon.  I have been very busy the last week and very likely will have a little more time next week.

How is Muriel’s pen working? I am going to get myself another one when they have them at the Post Exchange again.  I will send it home for you to keep for me.

I wrote Jay a letter the first part of the week so that he would not become offended because I did not write him as soon as I got back.  It is nuisance having anyone like him to be afraid of stepping on their toes.  He will, chances are, write me back a card with a couple lines on it.

Well it hardly seems a week since I got back here, yet it seems ages ago that I was home.  I can not cease to thank you for the wonderful time you showed me while home.

I have run down now so will finish now sending you all my love.

As ever,

Your son,

Stanley

Lt. Martha Smith Weds Lt. Ewing

San Antonio Light, 19 Feb 1944, p4

The Post Chapel at Fort Sam Houston was the scene of the wedding Thursday night of Lt. Martha Amelia Smith, Army Nurse Corps, Brooke General Hospital, daughter of Mrs. Claude T. Smith Sr. and the late C. T. Smith of Oakland, Calif., formerly of Westminster, Md., to. Lt. Robly Brewer Ewing Jr., medical administrative corps, Army of the United States, of Los Angeles, Calif. Lt. Ewing is the son of Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Ewing Sr. of Siloam Springs, Ark., and is stationed at Fort Sam Houston. Chaplain James H. Martin officiated.  Sgt. Fred McGown, organist, played the nuptial selections and accompanied Mrs. Jack Cobb Moore soloist.

The chapel was decorated with greenery and white blossoms.  Adorning the altar were vases of white gladioli and ferns flanked by tall wrought iron candelabra holding white tapers.

Groomsmen were Maj. Merton B. Skinner, Capt. William H. Falor, Maj. Ralph O. Christensen and Maj. Hoyt S. Kuhns[1], Lt. Joseph O. Redline served as best man.

Bridesmaids were Lts. Lesley Gaye Baker, Merle Henley, Margaret Shaughnessy and Elizabeth Katherine Brocktruk, Mrs. Joseph Edward Job, sister of the bride, was the matron of honor.

The bride was given in marriage by her uncle Col. John C.Woodland, of Fort Sam Houston.  She wore a gown of white mousseline do soie over taffeta. The full skirt extended into a long cathedral train. She wore a long veil of bridal illusion, caught to her head by a pearl coronet. Her bouquet was of white gladioli and ferns

Following the ceremony a reception was held in the officers’ s club. In the receiving line were Col. and Mrs. John Woodland, uncle and aunt of the bride; Mrs. Robert Christy, sister of the bridegroom, of Ada, Okla.; Col. and Mrs. Elmer D. Gay of Fort Sam Houston, and the wedding party.  After a short trip the couple will return to their station.

Transcribed from the “San Antonio Express”, 18 Feb 1944, p 11, San Antonio, TX – also found in the “San Antonio Light” 18 Feb 1944,p19

 [1] Hoyt S Kuhns (b. 6 Dec 1910 – Nov 1986, Terre Haute, Vigo, IN). He is listed as a dentist in a 1947 in Polk’s Terre Haute City directory

October 10, 1943

Sgt Stanley W Safford 39539976

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

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 1^st to 15^th 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,

Stanley

---

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Come_Lately

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Constant_Nymph_%281943_film%29

[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.

August 5, 1943

Cpl Stanley W Safford

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

August 5, 1943

My Dear Mother:

After a week of idleness of my pen I shall try and write you a few lines tonight and shall plan on getting this mailed tomorrow.  I am really ashamed of myself for not writing you before this but you very likely know how all things seem to pile up and happen at once.

We spent three miserable days out at Camp Bullis on bivouac at which time we went through the infiltration course under actual gunfire (machine gun) and came out with a few minor scratches and just filthy with this red dirt.  I tried several times to get a letter started to you but as always something happened and I was unable to get very far with it, so when I did get back to it, what I had already written did not make sense so I gave it all up as a bad job and decided to discontinue until after my return.  Fortunately I was able to ride the eighteen miles out and back only because they realized that I had too much to do at both ends. And I worked all day today while everybody else took the afternoon off plus the morning while they all laid in bed since they marched in after dark last night.

I was certainly glad to get in and take a bath and get my head washed and the dirt really ran off in great amounts.  And also pick off a few ticks which seem to inhabit this country the year around.  While out there I saw great quantities of deer and several rabbits.  The deer here do not get as large as our California deer get but they are certainly quite pretty and above all the fawns are exceptionally cute.  They also killed a coral snake while out there.  Otherwise there was nothing else of importance or out of the ordinary.  We did have those canned rations for one day which were in a way a great big mess with the fellows cutting themselves on the cans.  They come in two cans one with the beef and vegetable stew and the other with the five biscuits, small can of soluble coffee and three small cakes of sugar plus four or five pieces of hard candy that I am not too fond of.

And one of the things that is going to happen that I am not too fond of is that the major who is here in the Plans and Training office now is also going to have.  They all more or less get tired of the whole affair and are glad to get out. I do not as yet know just how this is going to effect my furlough, but I am afraid not too well for they all tell me that I know more than anybody about changes etc.  I am going to have a nice little talk tomorrow with a couple of people about a few things, and see just what comes of it all if anything at all and perhaps I may get something out of the deal somehow or somewhere maybe.  The entire bunch here all are dissatisfied with the entire affair and are all trying to leave or go somewhere or another and the less they have to do around here, the better they feel.

Sunday August 8, 1943

It seems that every time I start a letter to you that the interruptions seem to come twofold to hinder my completion of it. And one more thing to add to the mess here, is that the clerk that is in my office is going to leave this coming week for the ASTP (Army Specialize Training Program) which he applied for a short time ago.  I am sure going to miss him because he has been so dependable and has always done everything so well and carefully with very few mistakes.

But he shall do so much better for himself than he would ever have done here.  And I wish that I were learning at the same time with him for the same thing or OCS.

And as for my furlough. That, they tell me shall have to wait until a later date until we get settled again and perhaps get another clerk in the office.

I, in great desperation a few minutes, I decided that I was going to go over and get myself a pitcher of ice water from the mess hall where I found out a long time ago that it always paid a long time ago that it always paid to stay in good with the cooks and they are always glad to do things for me and the ice water today is certainly a great help.

I received a letter from Aunt Esther the other day and a nice letter from Joseph this morning and I shall have to answer them for I am way behind in my writing and I don’t want to get farther behind.

You asked once how it was that Comm Brett of the Navy lived here on the post.  I understand that he is more or less the representative of the Navy to the Army here or sort of a envoy or go between man.

You asked me in a previous letter if I were receiving my Reader’s Digest satisfactorily.  I wrote them a note telling them of the change in my address and I received a card telling me that the address had been changed and my last one came correctly here, so I guess that that is all straightened out by this time.

The other evening I went out to a very nice place here in San Antonio where they serve delicious seafood meals.  Mrs. Tedesco and my friend John Langstadt also went along.  I had some or shall I say half a very good lobster shrimp cocktail and a very fresh salad with some tartar sauce in all we had a very enjoyable evening.

I have come to the conclusion that I am going to send my watch home and have you keep it there after you have it cleaned.  I had trouble winding it for awhile and then it became very hard to wind after a while sometimes it could not be wound at all at times then again it would quite freely.  So when we went on bivouac I left it with Mrs. Tedesco who has a friend at one of the jewelers here.  She took it down to him and he looked at it and said that it needed cleaning because sweat had gotten in around the stem and that it was a little rusty there but he said that they were two or three months behind in repairs.  He told her that that was quite common around here even on the cheapest of watched and that there was not anything else wrong with it.  The same thing has happened to two or three others that I know of around here.  So, if you see some inexpensive stainless steel on around somewhere that is reasonable, will you get it for me because I am lost without one of some kind.

This Texas has certainly cost me enough since I have been down here: watch, cleaning and the high prices in san Antonio are a crime and a person feels worn out all the time because of the heat.

I was quite surprised to hear of the heat spell in Los Angeles and thereabouts.  I certainly do not envy those soldiers at Indio in any way.

You asked if I had heard from Marshall recently.  I have not hear from him at all and he owes me a letter since I wrote him last,  I thought that I would write again.

They do not give us salt pills but they have them here which I take a few of now and then.  My shirts now after I wear them, are all streaked white where the sweat has been.

What did Mrs. Finley do with the antique bed when she sold her furniture?  I always in a way liked the bed, but some day maybe I will find another which I will like much better.

Yesterday they made two of the first lieutenants here Captains so they should all be drunk this morning.  They always have a big party upon such occasions and then they talk and look it the next five days.

Well the day is growing warmer and I have run but of news so I will draw this to a close now and will write again soon. 

Will let you know when I am going to mail the watch home.

Always love,

Stanley

July 11, 1943

Cpl Stanley W Safford

5^th Auxiliary Surgical Group

Dodd Field

Ft Sam Houston

Texas

July 11, 1943

My dear Mother

I am writing you today from the office when it is quiet and perhaps a little cooler than my tent.

Last evening I went into town to take some cleaning and laundry in also to eat in town for a change and just as I was going into (the) cleaners it started to sprinkle very large drops of rain and it was still doing such as I came out of the café but soon stopped and did not rain again until after I got home.  I came down to the office here and read a very little then went to bed but awoke this morning about seven o’clock to find it raining and blowing in quite hard so I got up and let the curtains of the tent down and returned to bed and slept until about eleven o’clock when I woke up, got dressed and ready for dinner.  After that I came down here and have written one letter to Esther.

Yes, I can well understand her story.  It is the same old in-law story.  Too bad that she can’t move out and live by themselves, but then who would stay with her mother?

What does the dark of the Moon have to do with the frogs being caught or not?

How has the weather been in LA recently? Thanks a lot for the suggestion of the OD.  I was going to bring a pair of them with me and I will, when I come, because August will be much cooler.  The temperature reached 110° here one day last week and 103° a couple other days and that starts out about eight o’clock and cools off about eight in the evening, if it were not for that we would not be able to sleep.

The cookies arrived here in very good condition and they were certainly very good, Just finished them a day or so ago.  Everything else of that type has always lasted and been in good condition upon its arrival here.

I would sure have liked to have been there to go out to Susanna to help pick apricots, for I always liked to do that.

You once asked about if we in the Medical corps ever carried guns.  We do only on some occasions in the actual battle area.  But we have never been trained with them here.  In fact I have never seen one even except at the pay table and he is always an MP which they borrow from the MP Battalion here on the post.

Well, I guess my OCS application is finally on its way.  It seemed to take it long enough to get away from this outfit and I am trying to study all kinds of things that they may ask me before the board which I hope will not call me for awhile because I want to study some more before going before them and as you know I want to go so badly.

Have you heard from the Prentice outfit as yet? Or do they think that you are going to forget it?

The news from the Sicilean battle front has certainly been very good and I certainly hope that it continues that way.  I think that Hitler is going to leave Italy to themselves more or less and withdraw into the Austrian Alps where he has a good stronghold.  I cut a nice large map of Sicily out of one the USG? Posters that they send out and it is really a good one to follow for it has all the names in large type on it.  They really turn out some good maps.

I was to Mrs Tedesco’s house the other evening with John Langstadt and Gladys Hitchcock and her sister were there.  She is the other lady in the picture that I sent home with the four of us in it if you remember. 

Mrs. Tedesco served sandwiches and a very nice buffet luncheon, it all made, also included were or was a very delicious salad and a punch made up of pineapple orange and grapefruit juice which was very good.  Her father you know, is a retired Colonel who used to be Flight Surgeon for the  United States  Air Forces with an office in Washington DC.  If he were still in now he would be a Major General which the man who he picked to succeed him is now.  He is quite a person, active and gets around quite a bit.  The reason for his breakdown (cause of retirement), the doctors told him, was overactiveness and overwork.  He spent several years in the Philippines’ and Hawaii.

Enclosed you will find he picture which you sent me some time ago of the family.  If you want me to have it you may put it away for me.  I am going to send some more home also at a later date.  Also I will send home some more old letters which you may put away for me.

It is about time that I sent you were wanting some more Mexican candy.  When I am up ton again I will, when I see some, send you a box of it since you like it.  I am quite fond of it myself.

They have gotten the new school building here at Dodd Field completed finally and the Sgt Ryan that I have spoken of is down there, while I remain up here in the office up to my neck in work. Capt Skinner told me that that down there would be my job, when the building was completed. But he won’t be back for five or six weeks yet and I understand that he may leave here yet with the other two that are thinking of going to Brentwood, Long Island with Col. Hill.  I would like to go if they go because it would give me a chance to see some more country as well as a change in jobs, but there is always OCS that I may work for and stand a chance of getting it. As you well know the demand for officers is much smaller now than it was previously so they are cutting down the quotas everywhere.

I took time out to go down to the new school building where Sgt Ryan is reading and he was telling me the great big news that everything is and how he can not get supplies and how the officers expect so much whenever they have a class and how impractical and unbearable they are, but he need not tell me about it because I deal with them all day.  And I get as tired of tem as I ever got of anything.  There is only about one or two of them that are real gentlemen here since Captain Skinner left.  The rest of them are a lot of people who never amounted to anything or were never anybody in civilian life and now they are made a captain or major and are really supposed to be somebody and they lose no time in telling you so either.

One of them asked me if I had any matches that he could use.  I told him no, that I did not and he came back with the remark that:”Your training has been sadly neglected.  You should always have matches for the officers.”  I told him since I didn’t smoke it was not necessary to carry them.

And you mentioned once that perhaps those got ratings who deserved them.  Well that works only about 1/3 of the time.  It works the same in the enlisted men as the officers.  Somebody who never was any good or never amounted to anything usually gets them and they are just the ones who should not be non-commissioned officers (according to the looks) I as well as a lot of others get disgusted with the whole affair.  There are others here who are corporals who have had nowhere near the training that I have had and then come out and tell you that they got theirs by working nowhere near as hard.  Or they ask you why you are not any higher in rank and some of the dopes that they expect you to work with.

There was a couple others here that were very much disappointed about the furloughs.  One was a driver who, they tell him they were going to let two drivers go on furlough at one time but they changed their minds the last minute and are only letting one go.  He is also moved up to August then the Jew Major that I have here tells me in one breath that it is alright with him that I go and in the next breath tells the lieutenant not to let me go.  The lieutenant told me that he would like to let me go only the major told him different. So here I remain until approx. the 15^th of August.  My furlough will be fifteen days when I do get it and then again in October I will be due another fifteen days, maybe. Well that is the way it goes in the army.

Well, my Dear Mother, I shall close now and will write again soon.  Don’t worry and take care of yourself.

Lots of love from your son,

Stanley