Mary Paxton Keeley's Diary - July 3, 1918 - June 29, 1919
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July 3. I decide to go to France. Went out to Margaret's short course and Marian Farrish was telling me that they were going to send 200 women to France for the Y.M.C.A. I immediately set to work getting an application in. I went to Washingtn last October to see if the Red Cross would take me but they told me they were taking almost no women except nurses. I went home and settled myself to y work. But to know that I was really needed was the greatest thing in the world at last. I will leave no stone unturned. July 21 I see Mr. Pollard and he tells me he would like to hav me go but that I can not because of the brother rule. He tells me to do evrything I can to get something a done about that. I get to work on that. Once whe I was told positively I 'could not go" I said , " But I know I am going." And then I looked down and found the only four leaf clove I ever found in my life. Mr. Pollard told me if something was not done about the brother ruling by [August] 1 I could not go with his unit. I put everything to work I could. They told me it would take a m ricle to send me. July 28. I go to church and pray for the miricle. August 1. The miricle happened. On July 31 the ruling was changed. I know it was intended for me to go. August 8. I go to Richmond to meet a rather foolish committee. August 10. I get my appointment and go loco with joy. It seems to
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me my reason for existance is explained. All my training and experience seem to have fitted me for just this. Bradford Knapp talks and I get two ideas. Unless one gives all one is not giving enough, and if one can go one should. The other thing was that to our generation has come this great chance for sacrafice. There is a joy in my heart that this has come. Everyone is awfully good about my going away. I did not know how much my work meant to me. September 9. I get my call. I am certainly awfully busy. Going to New York, going to Europe, and going to war at onece is almost the much for me. In my list of eqipment I will list the things that have been given me. September 13. A very important goodbye. I tell him that I am going to war and he says, " You haven't anything on me , So am I." Which relieved me more than anything that has happened. I can not bear for any man not to go who can go, I mean he who is physically able. September 14. I am in a state of coma and if Mrs. Mead had not picked things up and packed them for me I could never have gotten off. No one in the world could ever have had a lovlier home than I have there. They have been so good to me. Mrs. mead made me a lovely sweater. They all go down and see me off. I have been so busy that I have not had time to think what it meant leaving and I wanted to cry.
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September 15. I give up my lower to an old lady who had never ridden on a Pullman before and I had to show her how to turn off the lights. I get to New York on a gasolineless Sunday. I stood before the Pennsylvania station and said, " And this is New York." I tried to make myself belive I was really there. I find Matthew pretty soon and we eat. He looks fine in his uniform. Donald and Lib come in in the afternoon. We go to the Beaux Arts for supper and I nearly dance my feet off. I see more cigarettes smoked by women than I have seen altogether in my life. The food is great. We ride out to the statue of Liberty went to the Fish house. If a person never believed in fairies before they would after they saw those fish, you could see clear through them. They got their idea of camoflaging ships from those striped fishes Then the harbour in the twilight with the moon coming up and the lights coming on and the Goodess of Liberty upstanding against the sky & Shades of my Presbyterian grandmothers , dancing in a resturant on Sunday night. It quite went to my head. I was so pleased with life that I smiled so much two strange men thought I was flirting with them, but I was safe with a militry escort. But I was weary. Well the Fifth Avenue bus is the ni est thing in New York. New York for the first day was about all I could desire.
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September 16. Map and I go to see an editor. After sending into these places all these years it seemed rather queer to me to be sitting in one. Not as I had pictured an editor's office I am sure. It was a tidy place, much like a high class realestate office. There were some rather nice signed photographs about. It looked fearfully new. Not a manuscripts in sight. Only one hungry looking author in the door. The editor, Matthe White was quite charming. Map kept telling him that he had lunched with him last time he was in New York but this hint did not soak in. He gave me a letter to a woman in England. I had rather live Life than write about it. We went to see Pat in Washington Square and went to a perfectly lovely Italian resturant where we had curly sausages and hot egg nog. Then we went to the Ritz for tea. The cunningest little Japaneese tea garden. Once is enough for that. The people were quite dowdy enough to be English nobility. We went to Rector's and I saw my first real caberet. It was rather gorgeous. All dressed up like birds. Map and I adopted a lonesome soldier who learned to waltz in the same dynasty I did. He was awfully grateful. I danced constantly. We saw Venus in the East, Mrs. Pat. Only three women in evening dress. The men in New York are the best dressed men I ever saw. I dont know what it is that makes them but they ar . The only thing particularly different about the women is gorgeous diamonds and more furs and handsomer.
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September 17. The funny thing about New York to me is that the names on Fifth Avenue are just as familiar to me as the names around the Square in Independence. If you have not ordered there you have heard of the place somehow. I believe that people away from New York who read know more about it than people who live here and dont. We meet Lib and go to the Museum. It is the same way there. Nothing new. Only the originals of the masterpieces we have seen on calendars all our life. The most charming thing there to me is Psyche. Whistler was new in coloring and a surprize too. Then we go to dinner at Pat's and eat from the Community kitchen and play poker till one o'clock. [September] 18. I go to Tenafly after seeing Map off. Lib recognized at last that she must go home. September 19. Donald and I get lib off. We go to the top of the Woolworth Building and I understand why New York is the greatest harbor Donald and I take a trip through the East Side. Every block is waving its service flag, a rather touching thing I thought. Every sa small boy tried to salute Donald. The East side is the greatest sight in New York. I never will have any more sympathy for the poor little tennement children. The have the most glorious good time of any people I ever saw and have about as much sun as any New York
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apartment dwellers. I would think these people would be throughly un hapy anywhere else. They have society. In the Ghetto the Baby is king. I think the baby buggy must be the largest general investment there. And a rather touching thing is that no matter how awful looking the mother is, the baby is dressed is lovely things and is clean. This seemed to me the lovliest thing I saw in the Ghetto. After that we went to Chinatown, which is past glory. It seems the empty shell. The hot rice cakes were woth the trip and we had chicken chow main for supper. Then we went to Churchills and danced. Donald was blue and so was I. September 20. Mike here and mad as usual. I never quite knew anyone with the disagreeable nature he has when he is not pleased. He acts like a spoiled baby. We go to the Waldorf and to then to the Hippodrome. I never saw anything like that before. Mike recovers his good humor. September 21. J. Ward shows us the town. We eat at an I alian resturant and go to Going Up. William Powell of Kansas City has a good part in it. A very dainty musical show. September 22. Go to the Museum. The hardest part about going to war is the heroics people have over you. I felt like I would scream if Mike did not quit talking about my goin We heard [ms illegible: 2 wds] and McCormac a great benefit for the fighting 69th. I never heard music h like hers before, just as I never saw dancing until I saw Pavlova.
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September23 I recuperate. September 24 Same. September 25 Conference starts. I was awfully interested in some stories we hear. One woman told the story of the Angels of the Marne as a British soldier had told it to her. " We got so that all our comera des was lying dead around us and there wasnt nothing left for us to do but pray. We Britishers prayed to St. George and the Frenchies thy prayed to Joan d'Arc and we dont know how it happened but we saw St. George with an army at his back and the Frenchies they say they saw Joan d'Arc with an army and them when the Germans could have come on with none of us able to hold them back , somehow they didnt, but they went back when they could have had Paris. A Frenchman said, "At first the French were just astonished at the Germans, then they hated them but now it is only an impersonal feeling that the Prussianism is a great putrid mass of matter which is about to overflow [Europe] and they are trying to sweep it back." Onf of the Y. women asked a Frenchman if they needed American women if the French women wo could not do what the women were needed to do. The Frenchman said, " But Madame the French women are running France."
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I was very much interested in the Conference. I think I got more out of my French than anything else. October 2. I spent a very poor time here. I was sent up for another medical examination and it was doubtful if. I am to go. "Nervous prostration six years ago is all they have agai me. I never knew how much I wanted to go till this came ut. October 3. Accepted. I was so glad that I made up my mind not to complain about my passport if it does not come for a long time. Donald and Armatage and I go through Little Italy and out exploring. The Liberty Loan i opened Saturday night and there are banners on Fifth avenue till it looked like a carnival. Every block represented a different allied nation. The windoew were gorgeous, some of the pictures I will never forget. I am very satisfied with my part for while others can lend their money I can now give myself. We saw a Italian procession w to hang a church service flag and a little fat Dago girl was dressed up as Joan of Arc. New York is American, every part except Hearst. I s went to canteen at the Eagle hut and talked French to the French sailors. Mike is cert inly good to me. October 4. Go to Canteen all night at Navy canteen, Nothing to do
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[October] 5 Quiet Sunday. [October] 6 Shop. October 8. Move to Holly Hotel October 10 Go to Boston by Fall River line. I get an idea how cold it will be on the boat going over. October 11. Get to Boston. Spend the day at the country club with Harriet and Larry, Matthew comes at night. October 12. We walk about Boston. Supper at the Torraine. October 13. Shampoo. Dorothy Worral for lunch. October 14We eat lunch at the Parker House with Larry and do the graveyards Id rather live in Boston than in New York even if the symbol to me will always be an antique sign. The lovliest old doorways. B oston has much the same atmosphere of Virginia. October 16. I come back to New York I share my lunch on with a trainload of soldiers. Get them some cigars. [October] 17 Go to work at Y fffice [October] 20 Help catch a spy two secret service men who look like matinee idols c call [October] [ms illegible] Move to Club. [October] [ms illegible] Mett Mr Sharn at the British Consuls [October] 26 Rosy [October] 27 Babbie [October 28] Bringham Catherine [October] [ms illegible] Your clearance is in. I think I am going to cry. [October] 30 Buddy [October] 31 Nellie brings in my passport. [November] 1 Snowball. Go to British Consuls [November] 2 Get all papers Penny the Pear
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November 3. Peter the banderlog. Because I angered Peter this day went astray. [November] 4 Ricky Ticky. [November] 5. Bridget the Berkshire. False alarm [November] 6. Baggage to boat. Supper with Dr. Weeks. For the last time, " Joan d'Arc , Je vous suive." Log Book Chicago. First Day. C'est le jour. I am so excited to get in a taxi at last and go to the boat. I had only a felling of joy in leaving, of hopes realized. Perhps if someone had been to see me off it would have been different. The Chicago is a funny old boat. I was glad when we embarked about noon. T ey say this will be a 12 day voyage. There are 47 Y girls and 60 men, Red Cross people, Salvation army, R Postal Service, French officers and sous officers, Polish officers and a few French civilians, one American girl going back as a bride with a French officer. The most picturesque people are the Poli tsoldiers with their square topped caps, these having been requitted mostly in Canada and Chicago. They sing in Polish as we move out. A man hollers to us from a boat that the Armistice has been signed. I may no be sentimental but I did not even give notice when we passed the Goddess of Liberty. I got too interested in a young man. I sleep all afternoon in my steamer chair. In the evening Our Hero comes along. a young Polish officer 14 times wounded, times decorated. He looks like the lead in a t e Chocolate soldier. with his decorations and his curly black hair and square cap on at a rakish angle. He tells me the story
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of his life in French& He is a count, friend of Paderuski. He understands my French better than the French do . Second Day. Ocean simply gre t. Bath of salt water the nicest thing of the trip. I get mine t six and then I have as much of the day as possible. I heard some woman telling the Bath stewart that she insisted on having a fresh water bath. Get my phonograph and go around serenading the sick people on deck, then play it for the Polish soldiers. We play for them a while and then they get up a band and we dance. The Count dances like a Comic opera too Petit dejeuner at 9 a.m. dejeunner at 10:30 and diner at 5:30. The bread is awful but everything else fine especially the cheese. I am glad this is a French boat. The convoy left us today . We called it the Puppy because it circled ab ut us as a puppy does th feet of a big dog.There are no lights on deck and the lights in the hall go out when the doors open. The decks are pitch black. But the night on the ocean is beautiful beyond anything I eve dreamed. I walked the deck. Third Day. A little sick in French class. Learn Fr from small children Talk to a variety o people. Enjoy being still. J Dejeunner on deck. Fourth Day. Went to church three times. Mass for the Polish soldiers on board. The young Polish priest chanted the service and the men on the deck below answered. It was lovely. Then I went to the Salvation Army service. I tried to sing but one man said to me, " Look at me Mary but dont sing to me. You have beautiful
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eyes but a rotten voice." I sit on deck with a big bass drum who serenades me. We have a young avaiter French who brought down seventeen planes. He is 19. A Belgian priest who is th n most powerful man on board. Fifth Day. This day began at 1:30 A.M. It was too stuffy to saty in my Cabin and so I half dressed and slipped up on deck. I snuggled down in the blankets of a sreamer chair and then I heard of the Song of the Sea, th like of which I have never heard before. I want to stop the sentry who walked his beat near me and ask him if he heard but I did not like to do it. It was as though all the creatures under the ocean were gathered together to sing a great symphony. It began low and swelled. The nearest thing to it perhaps is Hugo's poem Les Dejines. But there was joy and sorrow, triumph and dispair, love and creation. I think it lasted perhaps two hours. I did not dream it. If I were a musician I could start write a great symphony. Perhaps it was the dead who have died at d sea rejoicing that the war was ended. We start the Deck Swabber. a two sheet typewritten publication which goes on the bulletin board. I have a bass serena These nights on deck are like nothing I have ever known. The Armistice was signed . The French celebrate. I get an extra lump of sugar Parceque le guerre est fini. Sixth Day Out. The French celebrate some more. We have a procession on board. Ulysses t lls me tales. He told me how he died. Sush wonderful weather was never on the ocean I think at this time of the year. The lights are o the deck
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for the first time since the way -41 y voyages I sit out on deck w with a different man every night and most night two at a time. I try to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I never relaxed so thoroughly before in my life But these nights. Stars in the sky and stars in the ocean. Seventh day. The laughing waves. A porpoise. We had a Chineese and Polish entertainment last h night but now we have our entertainers The Deck Swabber comes out. Tge Irish can talk. We have gorgeous waves today. These salt water w baths are great. I am getting so happy I think I will loose ten years on this voyage and then they will send me home because I am too young I learn the difference between devant and avant. Eighth Day. It so happens that a Frenchman looks in my eyes in the moonlight and we forget the rest of the universe. Indeed we are alone in it under the stars. I learn much French. Nineth Day. I get decorated as a French sergent. The French officers get out a clever paper Les Potins des Bords. I continue my French. My Paul is a dear. Tenth Day. I get y up very early and sleep after petit dejeuner on deck. It would be hard to improve in French than I have. I have to talk French to Paul because his English corrupts mine. Eleventh Day. I get restless for the first time. They tell us we must sit up all night for the Custons. I decided I did not fall in love after all because I did not want to sit up with anyone
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The Americans are jealous of the French officers. Such a melodrama as we have had. Our Crown Prince and the little Red Cross girl were a bit indiscreet. The Red Cross man, Dr. [ms illegible:1 wd] who is well named went to the Crown Prince and demanded that he let the girl n entirely alone. The Crown Prince challenged him, had his sword sharpened and drank dix-huit cocktails. Then he went outside the saloon where to R.c. docter was and shrieked, 'Coom on out here, coom on out here. He slapped him hin the face also the faces of some of the Y men who happened to be in the way. But the Polish priests begged the docter to let them settle him. They walked the deck with him two hours which sobered him somewhat. Then he trie to dance but it was difficult Sourrier the French ace who was ruined in America said. " What you want to try to dance for tonight, You cant even walk Youre drunk." Said th Prince with magnifisence insolence." Well you were drunk last night." Then the Captain told him he would throw him into chains unless he made up with the Red Cross doctor. The Prince never did anything half way and so he threw both arms around the docter's neck and kissed him on both cheeks and gave him a champagne breakfast to celebrate the pece treaty Littl One Frenchman sai with disgust." When I drink dix-huit cox cocktails I walk straight, that why we say when a man drunk, he's drunk as a Pole." I will never forget the joy of these French as we near land. I felt my first sadness. Paul kept saying, "I so happy, I see my f France." I see my Fr France. I laughed at him
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saying "You'll die if you dont see your France in ten minutes," Then I saw his eyes were filled with tears and I tried to explain to him that Americans joke about some things they dont and the other way around. His love of country is the most sacred thing to a Frenchman. He is just like a child. Nov. 18. The s custioms came om at 2 and it was cold and damp. I find out why Frenchmen never get up early in the morning becaus hat they say sounds silly then. Henri proposed to Paula and Mr Mayo said if Henri hadnt falen asleep he thought he would have committed suiscid It was very wonderful in the harbor when the light came. A French soldier I had never seen before shook me by the hand and said." Goodbye. goodbye." I did not understand that he was welcoming me to France with the only English he knew the French customs were merely a matter of form. At five we had sour bread and chocolate. At 7 s we got off. There were a squad of French soldiers who fired a salute. The houses were all pink and yellow and green and unlike anything else I ever saw. There were Algerians at the docks who were as much of a show to us as we were to them. The old man wore shawls and som of them skirts and hoods. As we marched up the streets of Bordeau one old Barbara Fritche put an American flag out her balcony& The doors of these houses were all beautiful. We have a little food at 10:30 and an old woman gives me violets. I try to pay her but she will take nothing. We go second cla Mr Mayo looks after me. A young merican leutenant stays with us and tells the most wonderful stories. I give him the candy I brought over for Frank Wingfield.
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He devours it. He had a most becoming wound over his eye. We had two French women with us. one w had lost three sons and was going back to her home in Nancy. We buy the most wonderful white grapes but there is little else to eat. Paula sees one of her sweethearts at I------ I give some soldiers some chewing gum and they nearly die with joy. Nos sommes a Paris. Very dark Pay 6 a night for a terrible room. November 19. I get up at 2 P.M. Caught cold in the river. Get lost. Am in a perpetual state of being lost in Paris I go to dinner with a Y. man just out of the lines. Cafe Teddy. Dr. Moomaw. Paris is very beautiful but a city of half lights. I woupd like to see it in sunlight. The uniforms are every kind, French, red and blue and goldm the green of the Italians with the dash capes and plumes; the heavy turbans the Russians the tasseled caps of the Belgians; the Zouaves with their red pantaloons and jackets; the colonials the swagger Anzacks the Tommys who have no more style to their clothes than the Yanks and the ladies from Hell very trim . Will I ever get used to it? The violets are lovely, the loveliest in the world except Petersburg ones. Will so some one only buy me an armfull of flowers from these carts of many colors? I talk to Jake. T It is a good thing we are in uniform for Pa is now would bre k anyone. There are teo w prices one for Americans and one for other people. I guess we will pay for the war. Since the Armistice all prices have gone up. A good dinner osts twice as much here as in New York. But the French are not overcharging our soldiers any more than
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the people at home around the camps overcharged them. I am lost always in Paris. I am glad to get to see the windows still decorated at they were keep them from being broke n during raids. Everything in France is beautiful even vice. November 21. All the buildings and statues are draped with flags and garlands The flowers are everywhere. All up and down les Champs de Eylesees are t the German guns. The French people say that if President [Woodrow Wilson] comes there will be the greatest celebration the world has ever seen. We are told about our educational program. Every oldier is to have a chance to be trained for some work or professionM at the Perfect of Police I had to answer all the questions in French as to where and ow all my family were born. I had to go there to get a French carte d'idente. At Notre Dame I talked with some wounded American soldiers. They were just ordinary kids when they came over, one of them only 18 now. They appreciated this church as much as I didM The windows are worth the trip to Paris. One of them said, " Yes I changed. Before this I would no more talk about God but in the trenches we talked about him and we worse than prayed." I burned a candle for John Murphy. After we left there we prowled around in crooked streets and then we ran across som American soldiers with a French gendarme in civilian clothes for a guide. He had a large mustach and a great desire to speak English. The boys had talked to him the day before and he invited them to his house for tea and them showed them the city.. Before the war they
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w ar they would have laughed at his Funny English but now they know their French was funnier an they were so grateful for his kindness that it was almost pathetic. He showed us the church that had been so badly bombed and the church of Charlemagne After that he took us to the Place Vosgnes and we left him with the boys at the Place Bastil His appreciation of Paris was great. He relly stood in awe of its beauty and translated some of his feeling to the boys. I is as one Frenchman told me," Americans a few know many thigns but most of them know only one thing. In France everyone knows many things" I went to the Opera. We had Romeo and Juliet It was like one moolight night in August to me and Juliet was young and lovely The Premiere Dadseues was actually young and pretty The balcony scene music is of all the most lovely. It seems to me I dream. I hate to spend so much time eating and sleeping. I saw the real Paris gamin and they all demanded cigarettes from me One of the Y men was in a cafe and a French girl kept coaxing cigarettes from him H finally found she wanted them for her French sweetheart [November] [ms illegible] I live in sucha cold place I take cold baths i and exercisxzes Mr Mayo says it sounds all right for a young woman to talk French but it sounds kind of silly whe a man does it. I cant seem to make him try to learn We went today in the wrong direction about seven miles I meet Jake for lunch and we go to the Latin Quartier . . He has been
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fighting the battle of Paris for a year. He seems pretty bitter. He made m understand what our men are up against here. He told me about the French girl who got up on the tabld the night of the Celebration and said, "A l'Amerique avec pommes frit." More churches. I think it is time for Jake to go home. His mind is absolutly poluted by the atmosphere He says all French women are bad and he wonders if the women he has always known at home are really decent [November] 23 I meet Jake and we go to supp with Paula After that we go to a French music hall. I guess it is a good thing my French is limited. But it was delightful when a poilu almost got the best of a strong man and the women threw violets at jim. T The tug of war ended by the poilu kissing the strong man on both s cheeks [November] 24 Sick in bed with a bad throat A ceremony when you get a bath. I get it. [November] 25 fete of St. Catherine. The patron of all old maids. The girls line up with lace caps and flowers and go singing down the boulevards. This is supposed to mean a girl is ready to be married. But it has changed a littleM Rhey surround the soldiers and kiss them. The omen certainly do the courting in this country. They were awfully pretty with their flowers and ribbons and lace. [November] 28 I am sick with deep cold all the rest of the time.
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November 29, Thanksgiving Day. I never expected to eat Thanksgiving dinner on a French diner. I came down from Paris to Dijon with a soldier on leave. He had overstayed it as usual and I am not sure what was going to happen to him. He told me lots of stories that I wish I could remember. That is the tantalizing part the things you can not remember. He was a newspaper man and knew lots of people that I knew, exspecizlly newspaper people& . I gave him some chocolate or I think he could have gone hungry. He said there were lots of Ameriacam officere is jail in Paris because they had overstayed their leave and had not the papers to leave Paris. The largerst travell army in France if the A. W. O. L. It does not seem to be regarded as a serious offence if they can get by the M.P. After he left I talked to a French Red Cross nurse. She was the kind of French woman that we do not often have the chance to meet. She had been to the great militarty TeDeum at the cathedrial of Verdun. At Dijon I found Nannie Vaiden and Alice Howison. We helped with the party. It was a great initiation. I served the cholcolate and we filled up the French as well as the American soldiers. It seemed almost impossible to fill the French. We gave away fruit and nuts, tobacco, chocolate and cakes. It was a howling mob, more like a football crowd than anything I have ever seen.
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I had a French lady helping me and I gave her several shower baths of chocolate. I was so afraid of offending her that I said Pardon every other minute and everyonce in a while we would shake hands to show we were still on amiable terms . The French asked why the generousoty and we told them fete American I said y vous aimes fetes American and they answered t to a man oui aussi les dames american We also had the small French boys and they can show American boys several tricks about how to get more food at a Sunday School picnic. They finally refused chocolate because they could not carry it off in their pockets. The place was as jammed as a fruit cake full of raisins before the war. It was impossible to get out or in. We threw cakes and cigaretts to them. They all want to go home but they do not seem so very homesick. After supper a sergent took me to the Takn Corps minstrel show. One they pulled off was especially good, "wha you think Heaven is like." Oh (after - some argument) I'll tell you Boss. Heaven is a place where a second Lieut done been assigned to permanent K. P." After the show we served the actors. So I had a baptism of chocolate today like all Cantine workers. Instead of a baptism of fire.
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[November] 28 I met George McCullough at Dijon and he and another boy had gotte tired of marching with their outfits and taken to seeing France. I will say they made good use of their time. The M.P. was about to take them up but when I went over and smiled my best and said, " Now believe everything that boys tells you have known him a long time." (Which had an element of humor in it) This was sufficient and I tried to buy them some lunch but they would not have it abd bought everything the they saw to eat for me; Getting Georg out I call a good day's work. I am with a great girl. She can understand French btter th n she can speak it and I think it is the other way around with me. Coming down from Dijon to Langres we adopted seven American soldiers They had been trying for six days to get 150 miles Their morale was getting pretty low. We had lunch for two divided it into eleven parts t o include two Frenchmen as well&. Then we playd the phonograph and someone produced a c andle for their are no lights on the trains yet. None of this squad of soldiers had talked to an American woman for months. Our popularity was almost embarassing. We know it is not us individually though. The music was a great help as it was American mus and made a nice cheerful noise. Langres in one of the three walled cities of France. It is the quaintes place I have ever seen. The woman
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and children were ready to leave once during this war, the town council was saying an impressive farewell when the news came that the German tide had turned. At Langres we slept in a bed that a Prussian king had slept in when he was quartered there. During the last war the Prussians were on the hill opposite Langres and about to open fire. The people had gathered together in the churches and market place and promised God if he would let themr city go unscathed they would keep a light forever burning on the hill. The Prussians went away without a shot being fired and the people errected a statue. on the hill and the light has always burned. Ft. Saint Menge is a wonderful assignment. These boys are trribly homesick. We are the first Amerixan women to stay here. They dont like the French women much. They dont see why they cant go home toute suit. It is hard to make it clear what thi place is like. It is a remarkable underground fortress on top of a mountain. As you come up along the winding mountain road it does not look like there was anything here. We have 900 soldiers here in the fort and 1200 in the Canidates Training School below. EWe have a moat and have to go through underground passageways to go everywhere. We are billited at little white plaster house just in front and Madame is tres gentille.
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We are very comf rtable with one feather bed under us and one over. They speak no English and everything I can not understand that the little boys says he hands m the dictionary. The Y. was in a dismal state and both Y. men seem low in their minds. One of them is only to be described as a God-dam. It is impossible to see whey the poor fool was made. But where is my Christian charity. The worst of it is that he is from Missouri University We had pictured must of the work In France finished and ye gods this gut, cold, nothing attractiveM. We asked for primitive conditions and we got them and then some. Here was our first night. We had not time to make ny chocolate. We talked to the soldiers and I heard things like this, " Dont bother no fellows. I'm having a treat just listening to a real American girl talk." Well we wanted to music and neither had any in us. I went up there trying to find a piano player and after a long time I found no one. In the meantime I had to stand there kidding about 1000 men. We could not play games for there was no room. Finally I got a comb orchestra to working. The Sergt. Murphy came and my troubles were fini. But first I tried to lead the singing, yes I did. I would'nt do it except under pressure. The phobograph really saved us. here was none here.
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[Dece mber] 2. We had a party an gave away sandwiches and chocolate. Wes we were cold, but we had no time to mind. We satisfied our ambition and filled them up. My apron was hanging over the counter and I heard one of the boys say," That is the greatest thing I have seem since I left home - a woman' cook apron." December 3. Chocoalte seems just as popular sold as given away. At night I took the phonograph over to the infirmary to play for the patients and the doctrer yanked me an thumped me and ordered me to quarters with acute bronchitis. I was not surprized for I have been on the ragged edge. Father ------ has promied me a stylish military funeral But not a chance of dying around here for American wome n are too scarce. [December] I have a delightful young docter an an adorable garde-malade. He is the most chivalrous youngster I have ever seen.
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December 11. I get up after a hard time. ust missed pneumonia for which I am duly thankful. I have had various callers and mnu nationalities to nrse me, Swede, Dane, Belgian, Pole, Italian, Irish, German, Russian. December 12 I go back to bed. Am not much good. W The weather is fearful. I'd like to see the man who called this sunny France. I decide to be careful because the docter threatens m with tb pneumonia and other nice things like a loss of voice. ------ One Negr Soldier. D Is you a gwine to get a croix de guerre. Other wan away all I wants is to d cross de coean. ------ I hear great things of the Alabama Wild Cats. They never took anything to figh with them except a shovel and a shot gun. An they n ver took prisoners. The French were in the front line trench one night and the Alabamians in the back. The French were driven back after an attact and they came back c ying, Alabam, Alabam." They could fight. ------ Saturday [December] 14. I go hores back riding with three chaveliers. Some lovely day, We f go up into two of the petty villages where they had never before seen an American woman On my return one o old woman came out and gave me a nosegay of sweet smelling violets. My chaveliers said they were escorting Joan of arc. There was one lovel whit poplar forest.
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Sunday 15. I go on a ride alone. I get lost, get found and get lost again worse. War does make men different. These French sunsets when they do have them all spattered with gold and blue and o ange are worthe coming to France to see. This countr is lovely beyond everything but the Blue Ridge. I get pioleted by, a long, lank, lonesome Missourian who kisses my hand in leaving. Monday 16. The Lord sends a swift retribution on a certain Lieut, but he says the punishment was worth it. I find a boy from Christianburg Went today after Christmas greens Had a fudge party for the student officers at night. Half of th candy wen on a man's foot but he ate it. Met a boy from Wisconsin U. He told me his story. He is engaged to a pretty girl. He is going out. to the desert when he gets back and does not know if she can stand the hardship. I advised him to marry and take her. He said, " I wont know how to talk to her when I get backI" will be away a year by the time I get back." I comforted him, " You wont want to say a word to her. You'll be happy to just sit and look at her." He is a dear But I am wondering if the girl these boys have idealized all these months will understand when they get back. They have a new tenderness about them and
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a new roughness. The profanity is terrible. More then one woman is going to h get horified at her son. The boys at the front learned this terrific profanity and they taught it to the others. I have a scheme. I call Attention when I go into an office. The if a man swears too near to me to ignore I put him in the corner. They dont mean to do it. If he swears any distance off from me I don't hear it. Anna had one man explain to her that she need not get interested in him as he was going to get married the day he returned. Two soldiers are about to die of melancholia over her. One of them asked her for her picture to complete his collection. Jerry is a low brow who reads Henry James He asked Lieut Slade if he wanted to read athis book of Henry James and he said, " Not till the war is over." He demanded a handkerchief of her and when she said she needed hers, he took one of the flowers off the Cantine counter and pressed it. tenderly. Our Fort poet Beeler has been sent an an observation ward. It is all right to write poetry but when you take your poetry as seriously as Beeler did you are crazy. I think there are a few others around here who ought to follow him. A girl ran poor Beeler cra I heard a [John J. Pershing] story I liked. He was inspecting the second engineers just before they went over the top. With them was an old regular a sergent who got busted. a short time before. He was standing out in front
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of the Y hut during the inspection and watching. [John J. Pershing] blew up all the officers about various things and then went over to the old regular and shook hands and said , "Hello. Flannigan." I have one set of soldiers stringing popcorn for the Christmas tree and another set making paper flowers to decorate. [December] 18. Wee Willie said Darn and appolagized. He inagurates ping pong. I try to get the musical instruments for the minstrel but Maj. Moses refuses to part with the saxophone. Go to Langres in a side care with the rain pricking my face lik an electric current. I pick up a Sergent who asks me about getting a Santa Claus suit. He is down with 400 American soldier in a little French town and they are getting up a great Christmas for th French children in the village. I took him up to the Y headquarters and think I got him fixed up. Here is one pathetic story. A boy got a Christmas box today and in it were two pairs of silk socks. three silk neckties and one box of writing paper. They don't wear neckties. and you hzve to see this climate to know the idiocy of sending a soldier a pair of silk socks. And the Y gives them all the writing paper they need. We go down to the Canidates School for chocolate. The govt will have somthing to answer for putting those boys in a place like that
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A pompous young shavetail went into A company barracks and yelled Attention The snapped out of it Then a canidate sat down in disgust with "Oh Hell I thought it was a General Yes th morale is pretty low at present We put up all the pictures of pretty girls that Mike gave me and a sign across the top WHich girl looks like yours ? It causes endless discussion. The Major pays us a call to find out why his canidates are cutting school to come to the Y I make one soldiers wish come true. I go after mistletoe with three Virginans One of them say ." You know I'd just about as soon fight the Yankees as the Bock " The mistletoe is more lovely here than any I ever saw The berries look like gooseberries. We get some wonderful bunches. I believe this fort was modeled after an ant hill Saturday We decide some other women have not as good manners as we haveM . Some Christmas program we habe planned. My cherub goes off. Sunday The Colonel comes and asks to eat at his mess instead of th Post officers and we ignorant of army o convention say No thanks He and the Major take us to Vessoul in a car. Have dinner in a funny French tavern They are awfully nice and ahpppily married men. N Both young, attractive After all the side car riding I have done I enjoy this limousine. The 29 engineers make red paper roses and garlands for me. The other boys cut Chr istm tree stars and moons and baskets out of tin cans. We dont know certainly if the Y is going to send us a
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thing for our Christmas thee. I ma have another group stringing the precious popcorn Mike sent me. Go out in the ambulance twice after the most wonderful Christmas greens. Christmas eve day Got up and finished decorating the hut. Boys sewed up the curtains for us. The red and green garlands are lovely. I get some animal paintings and some yellow street lights from the Camoflauge School. Tim and I walk down there for them. We have three times as many p light These lights are a peace offering to me. We have our own minstrel show which is splendid. The boys ask us to u put on Civilian clothes to remind them of home. and get up on the stage and wish thenMerry Christmas. I put on my white georgette and Anna her pink and we do it. I get nervous but it gows Then we throw them cigarettes and cakes. We nearly froze&. In the afternoon we had to take the tjings to the 29th who went off to Rollinpoint and then I stole Y candles and decorated the little Catholic church Then the cooks had a dinner and we went in our thin dre ses. It was freezing in that mess hall. After the show we gave an egg nog party for the officers. The poor lonesome things would not let u s invite the other poor lonesome officers down the road. Men , officers particularly are selfish. There was no time to plan t o parties. The Colonel was a little crepe on the party. Christmas Day. We go in the morning to see President [Woodrow Wilson] review the troop at Humes. There were more generals and admirals than I ever expected to see
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The Presidnet wore a coon skin coat and a silk hat, not a very pretty ombinstion. Mrs. Wilson wore a seal skin coat and a black hat with a red rose. There was a formation of planes over out heads. The review of small tanks, part of several fighting diviosions, The French people yelled Vive le President, be we yelled just plain yells. I held a flag in front of me and had my picture taken. A soldier from Petersburg stood on one side of me and a boy from Abbington on th other. I stood for an hour rooted in the mud. If there had been more time I would have gone horseback. Christmas dinne was as gloomy as mud for all the men were violently homesick. I tried to make salad dressing but the oil q was so old that it tasted lik castor oil. All Christmas afternoon everyone tri med the tree which was a beauty. I just took a truck and got it. If I had gotten permission I would have a had a tree for Christmas after next. They sent us a perfectly lovey box of things from Paris dnssome creton aprons came for us. The hut h looked beautiful wnf the red nd white checked curtains surely do add. We have some French lanterns over the counter. I feel like myn prayers are answered in hving more lights and stoves. I play Santa Claus to the infirmery and the O D lets me tak things to the prisoners against orders. Gracious they are grateful. At supper we had a tiny Christmas tree with presents and c caps for all. Everyone was happy and it was a great contrast to dinner. We gave the Chaplain a horse. He came over to the hut and made us a speec I think the Christmas was a real sucess
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The only thing that did not turn out were the carrols and that was the only thing the Y man was re ponsible for. We had Bobbie there to the big Christmas tree and he nearly went crazy with joy over the American Santa Claus. We had filled his stocking the night before. We had a lovely fat Santa Claus and the soldiers were awful interested in Bobbie. We had a great noise outside. I jumped up and demanded to know what the matter was. The Sergent rushed back and came back and asked for a saw. And pretty soon he sawed a place for Sant a Claus to come through the roof. Bobby was as c e as could be and playe hiding seek in the tree with Santa. My Missourian I met on the road came up to see me. We only had three real drunks. One of them told me I looked just like the lady he used to tend bar for. Another swire in Willie's hearing and Willie gave him a lecture. He said I suppose I'm too vulgar for the Y.M.C.A. That old thing coming around and tellin me not to take the name of the Lord in vain". I think we kept some of them from getting drunk. I saw one man flourishing a bottle. They are so miserable and homesick I dont blame them for anything. The only word I had from home was a card from Eleanor Miner It was a wonderful Christmas but I did not have any time to think about myself. December 26 We finish a G. I. can full of cookies to give away during the week. I cook in a kitchen so damp tht I have to wear rubber roots and dont have to put much water in the dough. The roof leaks down my back.
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I have a detail of two which grows to large numbers. [December] 27 Went to Langres in a sleet storm in a side car to get makeup for second preformance o our minstrels Snow on trees very beautiful. Our fort like an ice palace. Our hut prettier than the one at Langres or Rollanpont. [December] 28 Party for the Canidates in the sho in the kitchen. We start library. Mr. Glas preaches. [December] 30 Monday. Another man threatens me with matrimonyM Walked down to Canidates school after paint. Library working fine. L Here is a legend of Langres. Attalawas attracting the city in 200 and Didier the second bishop of Langres said he would go and intercede. He could not leav by the gate and so the wall opened and let him out. Attalt beheade him and cut him to pieces. This enraged the people of Langres so much that they went out and defeated Attata. The people gathered up the parts of the bisop but could not find the head&. That night they found his head in the branches. He was buried in the old church but moved to St. Dizier which was the closest place the Germans came in this war to Langres. It is a charmed city. All the Canidates fuss about their officers, especially Capt. Stemps. One b y said After the war I am going to make him say Good morning, docter, if I have to say Good morning udge. The Chaplain tells me a miricle he saw. [December] 31 Willie tells me, "I am rapidly becomming unmarried". I strike on slushy soldier Anna leaves him to me and he starts with me where he left of with her. I am again threatened with matrimony This is the best chaperoned
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job in the world. Our Colonel gts D.S.C but he is so modest he has it done in the quietest way possible. NewY ars. One poor soldier gets a manicure set for Christmas from his wide. He farrier. We have beaucoup wood in th hut and I said, "Cant you stove lizards build up the fire instead of sitting there freezing. One looked up Dont you know a soldier is never as cold as he is lazy.? I get the hut painted and it is twice as light. They can read easily in the daytime without the eye strain as before. I have achieved two thigns that could not be done mixed paint and white wash, and put the combination on tar paper. All the construction men told me this was impossible, but it was all I had so I went on and tried. While I have been doing all these things Anna has keep chocolate line gooing and the Canida from starving. There is not room enough for both of us to work in that kitchen. Dowhn at the School 16 reported fo revil instead of 6p and the corporal answered All present and accounted for. The lieut looked at him sadly," Corporal how can you do it.?" I saw them all sir. I had too. In bed the art critic of the Metropolitan museum is in the Cam. section. He hlpe me plan the decoration. Here is a story that came to me secondhand. A boy was wounded and it was necessary for him to be left in the field, As he lay there he saw a very beauiful face bend over him and he asked him who he was. He said," I am one who has come to help you. He started to adju the bandages when a terrible barrage started. The man whom he noticed was
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dressed in white held up his hand and the barrage did not come near but fell all atound. When it was over he bent to adjust the bandages and his hands were bleeding. You are wounded, said the soldier. That is an old wound the stranger answered. and helped him up. As they left the place a barrage started a schrapnel fell there. He saw the man once more in he hospital. I write letters. SA Y cape has its disadvantages. We dine with the Colonel and the Major and afterwards go to the Minstrel show to see ou r boys at the MTC. [January] 2. I have a wonderful ride to Lang [January] 3 Fridy. Doughnuts. Flippsky said, " Captain Baxter's he's homesick for little Joe and LIttle Rock. And he s certainly is [January] 5 More doughnuts. Dr. Patterson comes out. [January] 6. I go to Rollanpoint on horseba for supplies. [January] 7. ransportation fails and I go on horseback to Percy abou 24 kilometres. I start to make doughnuts with the most of the officers acting K.P. They have not seen an American girl scarcely since the left America. One lieut had played with Forbes Roberston. He made a doughnut cutter for me. Two young things came over who looked as though their age had been waived to make them shavetails and they were running the place. Lieut Frank was C.B and Lieut was adjustant. Byt the time all the doughnuts were cut out we found that there was not fat to fry them in but bacon fat and so we had to bake them as cookies& I rolled them with a cognac bottle. As I cut them out one of the men said. It certainly
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does make me homesick to see you do that. Jean could not get over my ridin trousers and called , " Pantaloons after m all the way up the street. It was funny to hear her kid the officers in her cute English. When these little French girls try to talk E nlish it is cute but when we try to talk French it sounds foolish. I went over to supper with the staff and we had a lovely time around an open fire. Lieut Frank gave me his quarters. In the morning they sent me in breakfast and an orderly to do my shoes. I almost brought the C.O.'s orderly back with me This bunch reminded me of a fraternity house. Lieut Frank's orderly put away my cretonne apron for a souvenir for f him. There was one man they called the Lone Wolf from [Georgia]. When sober he was harmless but when he comes home drunk he has always chased a colonel or general. They had a cartoon of him seated howling at the moon with spaces marked offfaaveyard for Gener Graveyards for Majors etc. The C. O said, " I get as lonesome as Hell some days. I enough of men." They were billeted in a wonderful old chateau owned by and old woman whose son is a French general. They say the only English she knows is Please give me some sugar. Some French . Some French steal worse than niggrs. I have to hide my kindling in my trunk. When I was introduced to the old woman and tried to speak as much as my limited French would permit she look at her maid and said in great amazement ,Oh tres gentille. I suppose she thought all American women would be savages. The chateau is a lovely old building w
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with still lovlier grounds.. At the 1 fott of the stairs is a large Greek statue of a woman and she scares anyone who come in drinking. The old chapel which had a wonderful marble alater piece is used for an office. Outside is a terrace and then a long walk down a lawn. Oh wi either side is a stone spy spynx. S Down farther there is a woodland filled with little classis statues. At the end is a noble avenue of trees runnin parallel to the house. Some of the boys cut initials in the trees but were immediat sent to the brig. This chat au is said to be 4 centuries old. When I left the next morning they begged me to stay to dinner bu I knew if I did I'd stay to supper and then send for my clothes. I passed St. Geomes which is a yellow plaster walled with red roofs. T Some early martyrs were sacrafisced here. The horse lost as shoe so I had to walk him all the way and got home at 4 with a lovely sunset an the walled city blue against an orange sky. Saturday 11. Enter Allan. We get all excited over cooties. I get mad. Hellish sort of day. Sunday 1 w. We make doughnuts and cook dinner with 5 of the nicest K. Ps One boy walks 18 kilo to help me make f doughnuts. We had a thoroughly nice tim till one drunken officer butts in. Those boys wont forget these Sundays in the kitchen. They were warm and dry and full of food. Some acheivment filling 4 canid full and all the rest part full of doughnu Monday 13. Strt in town in a truck to get a mourning band for a man who lost his baby he has never seen. Mdet my friends the tankers coming out to give us a show Go back to town in a limousine return in Ford, They give us the finest
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show we have had. "You know I love you. You are the only woman I ever knew I couldnt figure out and I want to so much." He has a terrible thirst and asked major for a cognac just as s on as I introduced him. The major certainly looked funny at this shavetail. I hastened to explain I was not hunting booze for him. I But in the end I help him find it for i dont want to see any one suffer as he wasThese are abnormal conditions and our men react abnormally. The women at home will have to be very patient. We have had so many drunks around the Canteen at nights that it is wild. I went up to fix the foot lights becuase the Y men are never there to do anythin and I got hit in the head with a huge wad of paper. I wanted to go home and Mostly things dont bother me but I a a little tired. Anna and I have decided to take every other morning off. We hve been working from 8:30 in the mornin till 10:30 at night and if we washed our faces we had the feeling of stealing time. We would not have so much to do if we had anything else but the laziest Y. men in the world. One is in the way when he does come in and hte other comes to the hut about 10 minutes a day and mopes the rest of the time. We have to rustle for all supplies. They dont interfere is all I can say for them They are just what is giving the Y s uch a bad name. January 14 Tues. Make doughnuts. with two lieuts as K. P. One kisses me as we leave the kitchen. When I ask him why he says, " Beacuse I love you." There is no come back.
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The cold walk in the snow with the moonlight over the valleys below was perfectly beautiful. Sunday. Go to Rollanpoint w for another farewell supper with the prides of our hearts our four sergents. Anna makes whipped cream out of evaporated milk. Monday. We have to go to a meeting and the Captain spolis the nicest farewel party with our sergents. Tuesday Wonderful horseback ride through the snow with the most companionable man in the world. These rose gold sunsets are to be remembered always. I had the Colonel's horse. At night went to Lannes for a "wild night in France". I was so tired I could hardly crawl. We called on two French families. I will miss the Captain Wednesday He comes up to dinner and it is really goodbye this time. I like him better than any man I have met in Franc perhaps because he has never made love to me. I walk to Lannes for cheese. Write another application for discharge. One boy tells me about his mother dying and what a poor homecoming he will have. They tell you everything. We surely do miss our sergents. Thursday. Supposed to make doughnuts but no fat. Supper with Capt ain Gutherie and t o other people. Starving France. We have delicious egg dish, pommes frit, steak, bread, georgeous pastry, nuts and cofiture. Gorgeous noon on the snow and we look back the valleys as we climb up Cognac trail. and the little red roof village in the distance. I go to a mil military interview and join it. Friday. A bath officers bath house turned over on us. The Mlles return our call.
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The C O petrified Went to Humes to make doughnuts for that flighty Red Cross woman I am awfully lonely without our Canidates. Saturday. We go to Langres in a Limousine and I return in a truck. I get a kitchen assigned to me and when I go to get ready for the party find the stove mustered out. Get another stove up and have a fudge party for the officers. It shows th all a room needs is a fireplace& I wish we could have had t his room all along.The fudge as usuall did not get done. Everyone restless aout moving. The Chaplain says the reason he is gettin up for breakfast is that he is afraid if he doesnt that will move off without his knowing it. I make a Valentine with lace paper for the Bulletin Board. Your Valentine's waiting at home for you he 's longing for you because she is true. Go write her a letter and tell he the way You surely do miss her this Valentine day& Trash but answered the purpose. Subday. We have many events. S Inspecti Should one sit up in bed and salute the K.O. Is an army woman to be tha of the Russian Batallion of Death. Two casseroles? We dont wear them& Our room opens on a vestibule with a glass front door which has been awkward if one stays in bed at all Sunday morning. About [ms illegible] I lay half asleep thinking Captain wil perhaps be here next Subday when he c called me. He had r driven 120 kilo
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for about three hours there . We sit byt the fire which he builds for a half hour. He said he had not hoped for that much. The Red Cr ss lady an the Chaplain have a row. Capt. Counts gets jilted. He got a letter from the lady saying how happy she would be if she could. just spend one day with himand a week later he got her carss. I suppose she worried a little but she neednt for she has inflicted a huge relief on the man. There are two classes in the AEF who dont want to go home, one who has been jilted and the other who want to be. Captain Counts id the happy combination. Monday [February] 6. Go to town for suppli Tuesday '7 Doughnuts. Dance at Liberty Hut The driver maively informs me tha hewill come to see me when I get back and if I am not marrid he will marry me. He is a widower. [Wednesday] '8. Jorquenay to make doughnuts. The mn whose wife died has straighten up and loo s like a different person. [Thursday] 19 We have the nurses up here to dinner and they dance afterwa with the officers. We wouldnt let the officers have a dance till we j kne we c uld have one for the men. [February] 20 This day I will forget. We have been out with officers three times and that was one time too much. The most disagreeable thing I ever witnessed and I it might have happened to me. Saturday 21 I ride a hard mouthed hor to r town.One man trieds to take care of me and I appreciat it. Sunday 23M rite letters and keep hut [Monday] 24. We have a dance for the m everything decorated with pussy willows
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and ivy and lanterns. The head nurse is an old cat but the Chaplain saves the day and gets the nurses. He is a peach ( a Fransiscian monk) Twenty girls, a wonderful dance and our first. Co A goes to Beaune. Bill comes up Tues, Co B goes to Beaune. Bill comes back. Wed. Bill comes back, he showed me his family
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through your station ainstezd of chaniging int the middle of the night to go to Nimes. " We've dreamed Nice all through these muddy days and no other place sounded very good to us. We follow his advice. March 4 We go on to Mentone because we are much less apt to be caught at a smaller place. Intoxicated with the sunshi The country seems all gold and blue., the mimosa, the l orange and lemon trees laden and lots of other yellow trees and shubbery and yellow and pink and green houses in soft tints and turquois ones and aturquois sea. I go to d bed a 5 and sleep through till noon the next day.John Blair Moffett meets us at the train and fixes things up for us with the RTO Mary Brown awfully nice to us almost like we were visiting. Wednesday 5 I have a bath in a tub Walk to the Italian border with Dr Patterson. I know what they meant in the song I dreampt I dwelt in marble halls. Also that this is fairyland. I want to come back here when I die instead of going to Heaven. Some of our soldiers were celebrating one birthday and captured an old troubedor in a red spike tail coat and a silk hat and guitar who jauntil cocked his hat with flowers and took him on to help celebrate. The M. P. c gave me a 2 centimisimo piece to keep me from going across the line. into Italy. He was from Georgia and couldnt be rude to a lady. We ate all the blood oran we could eat. I com back and go to bedM I stay in bed everymorning and the banf plays in the park outside my window.
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Thursday 6 I shop. Wev stroll up and dow I would like about 500 france more to buy a tortoise shell comb some awfully nice corrals, a tea set, and a Rosaln collar. Well I am happy. It is funny what I bought Petite Mary. an apron, a book, a doll to be stuffed, another doll. I bought a precious bit of lace for Aunt Eliza. Dance at night. Friday 7. Stay in d bed as usual in the morning , stroll about eat poor but expensive ice cream at an English tea shop. Saturday 8 Go to Monto Carlo. Millions of purple pansies. A millionaires holiday all right. Go on to Niece It seems like the Arabain Nights. Ought to have Turkish attendants at the Casino instead of Y girls. and soldiers..Go by to see the palace of the Price of Monaco. Old man chase us through. Very old but the only really ornamental part about the place is the standing army of 12 all matched as to height and mustaches and uniforms more gorgeous than Frank's when he was on the govenor's staff. Opera Comique army The Prince did not recieve us. Our soldiers really impressed. They saw mud beforethey came here mostly. Cathedrial and tomb , beaucoup Princes there, red velvet and gold coffin for father of the present prince. The museums built on a solid rock wall over the sea. Danced at night. A funny thing happened I meet a typical Texas cow puncher who knew Buck bBurns. When I left slipped a piece of paper into my hands. I did not look at it because they are always sliping addresses in my hand when we part. When I looked
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it was a five france note and a fifty e centime note. When I aw saw him the next day he said," I hope you dont feel hard towards me but I wanted to do something for you and I didnt exactly know how. But he wouldnt have it back. Sunday 9. Sleep through churchM Dinner at night at the Annunciatta with Mr. Moffet. The moon on the sea. It has been a great time. Monday. 10 Some wonderful day. I climb to the Annunciatta in the morning with my Blackhawk and some others. We play around the old convent yard. The sea and the Alps. It is more like a dream than what happened. We dance at night. Tuesday 10 My Blackhawk goes off as he says with his heart in my hands. He stole his cousin's girl and he thinks the only way to get around teh difficulty is to marry some one here, for instance me. Thats the Irish always getting themselves out of one scrape by b getting into another. But I saved him from marrying me. Wednesday 12 We come home. This is a night not to be believed except by one who had ridden a French train in wartime. I dreamed someone was holding my hand and when I waked I found it was so, the chief surgeon of the first Army Corps. That was all. He was in the front lines from January till November and this was his first leave. He looke ten years older than he is. He has pa paid all right with his youth. He needs someone to teach him to play again. I hoe he goes home and marries a young thing. [Thursday] 13 J I did not want to sign out at Dijon because I had not papers
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to be s amped iut so I hooped into a camionette and went out to the MTC. I asked at the office for a ride to Langres and a Captain said he would take me in a camion Then a major said he would take us in his Cadilac. Hewas a nice old bachel in deadly fear that some woman will marry him and in deadly fear that some woman wont. On the road we passed our beloved 601 and making big ones into little ones. They were so as glad to see us as we them. The officer said,' You seem to know th company roll." We said , "We not only know every man but all their families and best girls." Anna scared they may not like our going AWOl. But when I explained to Dr Mabon he said Miss Paxton I think you did the right thing. Pearl Ramsome had rushed into town as soon as the 23rd told we were at Menton and so everyone knew it. We go to a dance at Hosp. 53 and nearly get kicked to death. I meet Ja Jake. Friday '4 we find the 601 have made Dr. Mabon promise to send us out to them for a while. Saturday '5 Now we not onlu eat what the soldiers do but but sleep k like them. We have quarters back of the Y hut, army cots no matress at first or pillows, a washbowl too small to get a whole hand in. Sunday '16 It seems like coming home The boys who are scattered kilometeres come to see us. Our mess is parti ularpy nice. They make us sit in a different place every meal so everyone will get to sit by us. The Major was the one who presited so hard until we came back.
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March '7 GO in after trunks. Tuesday '8. Go after supplies. Find a 83nd d ivision sergent who is a dear. March 18 Eddy our little Bowery Jew is a delight to us. He said." I had a chance to be a dogrobber for a l lieutenant and now I'm a g dogrobbin for two buck private Y.M.C.A. women. He said every time he made a fire for us it made him feel bad to think how hard his mother had to work to make him do anything for her." But I hope to tell you its going to be different when I get back." After he makes u a fire he talks an talks and takes i us obver the top. Eddie did not want to come to war and never pretended to enjoy it. Tuesday 20 We go to a meeting and I am afrid we are going to have to take Liberty Hut. Friday 21 We havent enough to do to keep us happy out here. I have always been awfully busy before and here we havent enough wood or water. The boys are kept too busy for us to do much for them. This hut is a fright but they are leaving too soon to get busy on that. I have a heart to heart talk with the sergent. Saturday 22 A Sergent and a Corporal have a ouble wedding- brides in veils and orange blossoms, rest of the wedding procession wearing pink and blue streamers They went to the Maire's and each bride tied a white ribbon on his arm and he tied a f tri-color sash around himself. Then he said some French over them and they signed their names six times each.
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Then they went to w each brides house and the bridegroom was backed up in the door and given an egg and told to throw it over the hiuse. If he failed which he did he was not to be [ms illegible] Eddie says it is just another put up job the French had on the Americand After that they let the Potestant chapl marry them although the girls were Catholic. This was partly in English an part in French. He had it written for him and he rehearsed it. They went to the cafe and drank a while and then they went to the houses of the bride and had a meal. They had three meat courses, an omelet, two vegetable courses, a salad, a cake, pie and beaucoup vin blanc. The Parson left then and he did not know what else they had. Another French custom is when a man starts courting he bakes a goof, a kind of waffles, and carries it to the lady of his choice. I suppose if she survives this the courship proc eds. Eddie says I guess I know why dey clls calls water de l
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The nurses run off and come out, good sports that they are and we have a dance. , 18 girls. The 60'st gets ma mad because they think we dance more with the 82nd division. We combed the country for girls. Wednesday 25 neuralgia from never being warm ebnough Thursday 26 We go out and find while hill sides of dafodills in the woods Fill the counter with great bowls of them. They help light up the gloomy place. Friday 27 Go to Gilley to a company of the 107 Engineers. The men so bashful only one of them talks much because it is the first time they have had an American woman for about eight months.E We make cocoa for them and serve it. Meet a lieut who gave us his lovely quarters with a fireplace He was jilted thoug why any woman woul have the bad taste to jilt him I dont know. Friday 27 The Captain declared a holiday for the f officers andwe sit around and tell their fortunes and play cards till they come for us. When we get home al late they come by for us to go to a non-com dance. We run tinto a French civilian on the way which makes me so sick I can hardly dance. The frog was unsconscious and we f go got hinm into a passing ambulance which went ahead. But the last we saw of him w he had jumped out and was dashing up the road. Saturday 28 We get asked to saty another week. I am so cold. If I had enough to do I would forget it. Sunday 29 We make doughnuts. A French
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show in out hut buy the very anci ent dramatic society of Prauthoy The burlesq of the American soldier is a scream All the French . he can say is X Cognac toot suits comme ca. Which is mostly true to life. Tuesday We go to Beaune with the Major and two others to a dance. Gee Beaune is some speedy place. Go to a dinner where they have little to eat and much to drink including sparkling BurgandyL The n rse across from me so s drunk she says to her partner," You know I'm not as young as she used to be. We are all right in this country as long as we stay away from booze. We dont like officers dances much, but our officers are mighty nice to us. But an officer's dance is too tame after an enlisted man's who appreciates you moreM. An offivcer usually instat on their being one woman apiece. Hard concrete floor about as elastic as glue. [Wednesday] 2 They wont give us a bed at the Y and so we get in at 3:30 in time for breakfast pan cakes. Go to sleep on th way home. Go to Vaux to make chocolte and then to an officers dance with an attractive looie from Brimingham. Thursday 3 Anna sick. Friday 4 Awful blizzard. Saturday 5 Came in to Langres bag and baggage. It breaks our heart to leave O. D. our pup. Go to a dance at Rollanpont. Snter Louis. Some exciting s dance and af it Louis steals the breakfast oranges. Sunday 6 Louis and I go pink snail hunting. Louis had a girl who kept asking him to write her everything about himself.
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He wrote a candid letter to his pal in which he did just that and by accident got this mixed with a letter a to her. She never answered and so he wrote and told her it served her right for wanting to know everything. Jake comes to see me at night. He told me two stories that interested me as we walked around the walls in the moonlight. It was fascinating the lights in the vaklleys far below and the cthedrial chimes at nine when I had to go in. When he grew up he had an ideal girl in his mind. She was very concrete to him as to complexi size, disposition, accomplishments. Blond, blue eyes, a good dancer, a musician, a good pal. Not afraid o pick up a mouse and throw it out of the wondow. And then hw met her. He tried in every way to fall in love with her and could not. He is engaged to a girl he does not love. He found a nurse engaged to a man she does not love. They are trying to arrange for their fiances to meet. It seemed lovely wandering about the old walled city. I will never forget the old world charm of this place but I think I will enjoy it more when I am back home than I do now. Monday 7 Louis tags around after me. The Y agrees to send us to Chaumont They tell us to go on the train but we have too many things so I go to the MTC and ask for transportation . They give it to us and we tell the driver we must go back by the warehourse for our monkeps
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He says BWuat are you running a show.?" But it is our camoflauge animals we are after. At Chaumont we are billeted in [John J. Pershings] od chateau which has yellow satin walls. We are assigned to the 36th division to our delight
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April 8 My life here has fallen in pleasant places. Up to this time we have very largely had to work by ourselves, but here we strike a very wonderful organization with a realy big man at the head of it. We went to Chaumont Monday , beaucoup baggage, They did not want to bring us in a car but I knew we never could get on the train with four trunks , some large plaques, two roll ups, three suitcases, a typewriter a basket, and wraps, . There came near being our pup O. D. but we decided not to take him from his happy home at Prauthoy. And so I went to the MTC and asked them please to give me a camionette which they did and we came with everything. If you dont think the soldiers like the Y. women or really most any American women in France you ought to go down the road with us. They may snap up into a salute perfect when the four stars go whizzing by on a Cadilac, but the way they salute us with shovels and arms and smiles makes me for one know I did the right thing to come to France. We always have this joyful procession down the roads. At Chaumont we were billeted in the Y. W. C. A. hostess house which was a chateau with yellow satin walls where General [John J. Pershing] was first billeted. We were invited to stay over and have tea with General [John J. Pershing] but we said
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we wanted to get on out where we were going. We added two red headed birds to our possessions here, Revilee and Retreat we have named them. Mr King the divisional director came forus. He is a delightful person, who is staying by this job though the wants to get home and see his sixteen month old twins more than he wants anything. We asked him where he was taking us and he said HOme. And it did seem like it. The 36th division is where we came. They have never had any Y. wom till lately and there is nothing too much for them to do to make you comfortable. We have a wonderful fireplace and a boy to build us fires. Just this week we are at a place that sounds like Denny Moore but the spelling is by me. We will be at Cheney about six kilometers from Tonnerre where the ( Division headquarters are. ur work will be with the Division School. I think we will have about 2000 men to take care of so uou know we will be content once again.I found a V. M. I. man here who was in Frank's calss, Major Dunbar from Kentucky. He remembered Frank. Also about the first person I an into was George McCullough, who has quite distinguished himself in football. He made some sensational plays in the last two games. Our division team licked every thing in the A. E. F. but the 89th. I can not tell you how glad these Texans are to see us. We may be allowed to come home with the division and be with them when they land in Galveston. Our sailing date is not set. We think it is to be in July. It was pretty nice of them to have a division review the day after we came with the C in C to look
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It was a wonderful sight and feeling tha we were part of this great division. General [John J.Pershing] inspected thoroughly. He never appears to look at anything and yet nothing escapes him. He decorated four men, three sergents and one lieut and then put the war ribbons on the colors. Then he came over to us and shook hands with each Y.M.C.A. woman and thanked us for coming and said everywhere he went they asked for more of us. He said that he had appreciated American women more than ever since this war and hadnt American men grown bigger to us. Most of us wore too embarassed to say much. One woman told him his mother had given her a gold thinble, but I spared him the information that I was born in Missouri too. Then he made a speech in. which he said the was proud of the 36th, that though they had gone to the front with less training than he would have like but that they has made a good reccord. He exhorted them to clean living in a way only an American would have done. He has one of the sweetest smiles I ever saw and the simplicity of all really great men. He might have been your uncle or anybody for all the airs he gave himself. I dont believe he likes speechmaking but he did it because he thought he owed it to the boys to tell them what a good division the 36th is. I had only been in it a day and yet I just swelled up with pride. Of course he would have made the boys happier if he had set the date . One old scout who was with him in Mexico told us he was going up and tell him the 36th ought to
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go home. The others around shrieked deriesively," You tell him" and he did. He was one of those old hard boiled typical army sergents before the war. He went up to the C in C as he came down from the reviewing stand and salute and talked to him five minutes. Black Jack smiled affectionately at him. It was fine. Our army is a democratic army Our own General Smith kept trying to make the boys keep their helmets on while they stood in the rain listening to the C in C. One more theing happened to me I thought they had all gone and I got on a machine gun carriage and g road behind a galloping mule over a plowed field. It was like sticking on a bucking texas broncho . Just at the roughest place the limosine came by with four stars on in and the rest of the generals and and they grinned at me in turn. After that we called it a day. It was a day I will never forget One man said with some awe "I suppose you wont wa sh the hand General Pershing shook" I hope to tell you I will. If I had had a glove on I suppose it could have been handed down to Petite Mary just as they used to preserve the slippers they canced with Gayfette with I may label some glove as tha
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We were billited in Donnemoine reported for work at Cheney and ate at Transois. they told us to hang around headquarters for a while but that did not suit us very well and so we met a Y, man who said he wanted us to go out to a lonesome machine gun company. We went A. W. O. L. and spent three days out at Meslomes with them. They surely were glad to have us. The captain had a baby born the day they first went over the top at the Chapai front so he calls the baby Champaigne Jack. It has been hard to convince some of these Texans that the Armistice has really been signed. they demonstrate to the excitement of the French the fact that American cow boy movies were not all fiction. And this is a crack shot battalion. We saw a French dance that Sunday night but my attachment to my life made me refrain from dancing. The French whirl rapidly without much regard to anyone else on the floor. The boys out there gave us a show which had a bull fight in it and it was a rare - so rotten that it was good. Monday the General gave us a tea. He is certainlya nice, fatherly old things. He is billeted in the lovely chateau of a Princess and the rooms were beautiful indeed in thier proportion and decorations. These chateaus do not looo very much lived in these days but I suppose the people take out their
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most personal, possessions when the officers are billeted there, but the lovely tapestried walls are left and beauticfully upholstered chairs and sofas. The General as s well as the other officers in the division make us feel that we are the most valuable of the personel. If we stay in headquarters we have to dance somewhere every night. I think I have not the endurance for that&. I can only stand about three of these dances a week. Monday night we went out to a dance at St. Florentine. An Indian got a terrible liking for me. I never spoke to one in my life before but I danced with him frequently. I did not know how he might take it if I showed any preference for anyone else. These dances will make any other dancing we may do rather tame. Tuesday we hung around begging for a job and they would not assign us so we met a Y man going through the country to Paris and we begged a movement order from a stenogr and chased off. The Y. man was going to Paris to try to get permission to marry a Y girl who is up in Germany. He had been once before and they sent him to [John J. Pershing] and he had the General's blessing and permission in his pocket. The trouble is if she marries him she gets sent home toot sweet He does not want that because he has to stay here. He is a cousin of Jack Aldridge's wife. W He went to see the Y. people and they passed the buck back to the War Department. He
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went to Chaumont to see Baker, Baker said he would se what could be done. The result of this is rather interesting to us because if we should take a notion we want to know if it can be done. It almost cant unless you marry a soldier about to come home: - that is unless you get sent home without him and what is the use of that. I thought all this contract talk was talk but Mr. Foote will tell you it is sad reality. We went through the Fontainblue Forest. . It is quite lovely. There are some things we can learn from the French and forrestry is one of them. Everything is minute her There are no real tall trees in that Forest. We went through D Sans but did not have time to stop and go in the Cathedrial, but they are all so dark and musty and look so mu much alike that there does not seem much use. Even the greatest of the cathedrals have much that is tawdry as well as beautiful in them. The pictures in them can hardly be seen. The general structure of them is so much more noble than any of the details. I do so believe in letting general atmospheres soak in instead of minute particulars. I dont see how some of our tourists have stood the sight seeing thay have done. We ought to know the country as it really is because we have been off the beaten paths. At the Louvre most of the
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treasures are still locked up, but I saw their most notorious one, Mona Lisa. She is quite fascinating, looked very pleasant the day I saw her. I think from what I saw the Metropolitan has more of the better pictures of some artists. We understand lighting pictures as they dont seem to do. But they do know how to place them. The Winged Victory was at the head of a grand stair case by itself and Venus de Milo had a spacious billet considering the prices of rooms in Paris. We had to pay 40 france for a room without a bath
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The battlen of rue d'Aguesseau is the worst any of us have to fight. This time it was shoes. If the people in the field were as unsympathetic and uncordial as the peoppe at Paris headquarters the Y would have gone under a long time ago When we came from Paris we went to another review where a Colonel recieved the Croix de Guerre. The General asked one of the Y. women to . t finish the job he started. Miss Eubank (hardboiled Sal) shook his hand and kissed him on one cheek. By nature reflex he put his arms around her and turned not the other cheek but his mou I certainly made her blush when I told her she meant to kiss him on both cheeks but she stopped half way. Friday night Captain Norcross showed up and took me to a dance at Chattion. I met Captain Harry Stuart and Captain Peake. Saturday he brought us out to Dye birds and all. We are with th first batallion of the 143 Infantry. They are so glad to have us it is almost pitiful. We put up our animal painitings and as it was in a tent and a bugle call blowing for something just outside every half hour or so it w seemed like a show. We went to Flauny to a d nce at night because we promised. Easter. Sunday. April 20. The Chaplain put the spirit of Easter across. in that flag hung wind swept tent better than I have seen it done in some cathedrials. We salvaged some wild plum
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blossoms. and stuck them in a lard can. It is almost pathetic how they notice and appreciate every little thing we do. Sunday night after the movies they stood so thinck around me that I had to come up for air. Sunday afternoon I mixed and rolled doughnuts on a table facing a huge crowd. I cought tom get a job in Child's window when I h get home. We had mobs of boys all afternoon. Monday 27 We go to a ball game. I make Anna go into Tonerre to a dance and sta out and have one all by myself. There was a French dance and I determined to keep the boys away as long as I could I organized an orchestra. I played on a one-lunged tambourine, one boy cords on the apino, one a jews harp, one on a can with some rocks in it, one with a bucket for a drum and there were beaucoup combs. We danced a Virginia reel, a hoe down, and I tried to waltz with them on the pebble strewn ground which is the floor of the tent. Then we sang the song book through from cover to cover, all of standing under a wheezy gas light. I held them from seven till ten and it was worth it to keep them away from a frog dance. They have to put on an extra guard whenever th there is one of these frog dances. Everyone gets drunk. Cark Talbot is a captain in this batallion. Tuesday. I sew on ensuignias and at hight we go with our men in a truck to a danc at Tonnerre. A lieut wantw to bring us home in a Cadilac but we go the way we came. K It is beautiful the appreciation of these men. One of them said," I could'nt find words to tell you what it means t o have you two
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girls out here even these few days." We will never be so repaid again for anything we do. Tge gratitude of the plainest of these men spoken and unspoked is like nothing that e ever happened to women before We are just where we want to be away from everything with the soldiers. Wednesday. Mr Foot comes out and akes us to the Front. We spend the night at Chaumont and barely escape killing a soldier on the way. Thursday. Dinner at St. Dizier. I draw a preacher to ride with who looks li the cat in the Blue Bird. Bar le Duc is the first place we seen much sign of war. Many Abri signs there or Cave votee. is the first ruined village we see. I find Powhatan's grave near Rarecourt. We almost run over old woman in a ruined village and break b her crutch. It. would be ridiculous to get through the war in the devastated vill ge and then be run over by a Ford. Stop for the night at Varrenes in a ruined chateay. The Y. Hut therr fixed up fine. they use shell cases for vases and helmets of f erns for hanging hbaskets.We szaw the remains of tjr house where Louis XV came down to steps to be cptured and guiltitoned. We go to a dnce. I remind myself of the nursery rhyme,Pussey Cat Pussey Cat where have you been. Se did the same things in London tha she i did becfore she came. I did the same thing on the battk flields that I do elsewhere - danced and courted.
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Varrenes is a ruined city with all its inhabitants gone as far as I could see but the ruined houses have been brightly lighted by the Engineers. Friday. I swapped the preacher for Louis and it was a good trade. I also saw that they stayed swapped. We saw the battlebfields. Mr Foot our guide was a laison officer during the last 15 days of the drive and had ridden down that road every day on a motorcycle. At Varrenes I meta man named Ridgeway who went to the University when I did. From Varrenes on to Verdun there was no much but desolation. I feel like the little girl I took through the Field Museum who said as we came out," I seen too much." The only thing you can think is "Oh woe, oh desolation". Villages as bare as a dirt floor, pieces of wall standing in some. In a few of them there seem to be an old man or an old woman left or perhaps they have come back. They have a miserable look out of their eyes , some of them. Solitary crosses, the French with the tricolor rosettes; the German mostly painted black and our own plain t with the dog tag or the tiny silver name. At the edge of a shell crater sometimes one cross, the shell dug the soldiers gaeve for him Sometimes there are a little group of crosses near a shell hole and these are often unmarked. Our graves are perhaps fewest because the army is fast moving them to centers.
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I am glad they are moving them for I do not see how a man's soul could rest in peace while his body lies out in this terrible ppace which was No Man' Land but now is Dead Man's Land. No one could possible realize what this war was until they have seen this. There is as much to be done and more than the day God created it. I ought to sail to tomorrow for this have given me some real sympathy for the French. I will remember these solitary grave when I grow impatient with them.. At Grandpre almost no one had come back to the village.We went into the beautiful old church which was badly damaged but not beyond recall when these plodding French get to work on it. All the French churches even in the tiniest villages have rare treasures in them. E. W. Thornberry an Episcopal clergyman salvaged the head of Jesus which he broke from a statue on an altar. this was not enough so he broke off a carved cherub from another altar and a hunk of the door to get some shrapnel out. I dont know that the Germans ever did anything more sacrelidgi than this. I told him so too. From Grandpre we went to where we salvaged a few helmets and other junk. I found a good German rifle which is more of a white elephant than anything I went dorn into some dugouts, always bumping my head. They may have seemed comfortable under a barrage but I dont think anyone would ever stay long in them. now. They are not very different from the caves the kids used to dig. We passed through Fleville where I had heard the 111 Engineers talk so
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much about. I believe I had rather stayed outside and died than inside a dugout. The thing about the fox holse hard to understand is how they could be any protection at all. But there were eagerly run for as rabbits do their holes. they were dug with mess kits, with helmets, with sticks or shovels. A shovel was the one piece of equipment a soldier never threw away. It was impossible to get any clear idea of things because there did not seem to be any regularity about the trenches. expected to find front line, second line an communicating just as clear as a checkerboar but it was confused, because in [September] the Americans abandoned trench aw warfare. I suppose I got my idea of regularity from the training camp trenchesM We stopped at Romagne for dinner. Here there are making one of our national cemetaries 2700 already buried there. The hardboiled colonel decided to make it an Adampess Eden and drove the Y women out. O It is a dreary place at present but they in end making it very beautiful. We went to Cullen an unsalvaged territory. I found a French cap with one infantry button and one artill Some negores told us they had fou just found one American soldier ina dugou sitting up dead. At Rogmange there seemed to be w mountains of coffins, empty and filled It would be f like living in an undertaking shop to live there. They are bringing the soldiers bodies in that are the most remotely buried. At Maufacon where the Ka iser and Kronzprintz had observed the battle of Verdun there were some rather remarkable cement lined dugouts with electric lights. These were built right in the ruins of the town.
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In one g dugout was a beautiful dynan over the door in cement letters Kronzprintz Werk. Anyone could see that h this was a valuable point to take, It must have a lovely village. the ruined house where the Kronzprintz was lodged had the floors reinforced with concrete. From this place we went to Hill 304 and Dead Man Hill . Here things were bare as a desert. It was hard to believe that this had been lovely French landscape. Even the wild plims had beem destroyed. Every tree had been broken off by shell or cut down. The wires had been shot off the poles. I began to respect the signal corps more than ever. There was not a telegraph pole left. There wer millions of yards of barbed wire and st increasing the lonely little crosses. The road was fearful here. The one thing most in evidence was the yellow corn willie cand. Back near Varrennes the German prisoners were being made to restore but here there was nothing to restore. Not a green blade. God will have to s a restore this for man cant. Along the roads were German, French and English signs. One must have been written by a humorist, " "No stopping allowed i on this road." Mr Foot said he was perfectly sure no one ever wanted to stop. Other signs were Split Convoys Here and other P C sig The different divisions had left their m The road was camoflauged almost straight to Verdun. Sometimes on one side and sometimes on both, s A very v few were hidden overhead. There seemed to be thre ways . The wire. like a tennis backstop was . used for a foundation, sometines
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with strips of green cloth tied on, sometimes long needle of pine tied on, and sometimes a sort of straw. T There were yellow patches on the road which Mr. Foot said he thought was mustard gas. Sometimes trips were hung overhead at rather wide intervals. The town of Verdun is badly ruined. We slept just under a shell hole o in the roof and there was on in the floor a little to my right. The cathedral was being policed up by German prisoners so could not go in. The old wall and gate, which is shown on the Verdun medal, is the most characteristic thing about the town Food is so scarce there that no America is even allowed in a shop where it might be bought . We ate at the Y. Saturday we went to Death Valley. On on cross I saw a skull and on saw a bone in a German boot. The crosses here are as thick as the candles on the birthday cake of an old man. Things really seemed grewsome here. The tiny railroad which played such an important part is still there&. Louis pushed me up the hill in one of the cars. Ft. Douament was more modern than Ft. St. Menge, this one all under ground. There are many chambers here, in one sealer one with a tablet with names on the door lie some French where they were blown up. In another under a pile of rocks lie 27 German. There is a water plant and electric lights. We the little chapel where the dying saw the last of life as they recieved their last communion. There was an extremely good operating room.
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We ate dinner at St. Michel. It did not seem badly hurt in comparrison. Stopped by Sampigny but the 35th had gone. We had a few minutes at Domremy Joan d'[Arc] came from a prosperous French family I think because the stable is not attached to the house. Igot a red lily there and a little medal like the boys wore so much. The farming country around here is the beas I have seen in France. I wished the old shepherd we saw had been a shephardess and then it would indeed have seemed as though it were Joan. I do not imagine the place is much different. I suppose we saw the descendants of the same sheep Joan drove home.We did not have time to go to the Basilisk. I did not see there nor have I seen anywhere a stature of Joan as beautiful as the one on Riverside Drive. I do think it is a pity that there is [ms illegible, 1 wd] small replica of that placed in this museum. I picked up a beautiful red lily in the yard. At Neucheteau we ate supper and I met a man from the University named Cox. Spent the night at Chaumont. T. Y. W turned us u out but a Y. transportation man gave up his quarters to us. We again craped Mrs. Carney out of the bed. She gets the cot. Sunday. April 27. We have a petit comedy. After Louis left the army and went into the Y. his father had him transfered to the 36th division. The old man got quite agitee because he thought I was trying to vamp Louis. He tried to separate us but t a chance. It is funny to spend three days with a person and then hate to see them go. Such is the life in the A.E.F Monday 28 I miss Louis. They make us pack up the Y and we move into
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an old barn. Have a dance all our own. Tuesday 29. Pack up. Wednesday 30. Make doughnuts. Have a farewell party at night. A Lieut. tells us the story of his life. May 1. Tuesday. come to Tonnere on a truck. Lieut. Mosher helps us out to Ervy. where we are to feed the troops as they entrain.. Louis meets us. We bring our pup, Toot Sweet. Friday May 2. We have two trains to feed. Then we go to Tonnerre to a danc The nices lieut in the division brings me home. The men we fed in the morning had missed breakfast and the ones in the afternoon had missed dinner. Louis is the most necessary person on the place to me. Ervy is the nicest small town we have seen in France. It is market day and all the m little peddlars have opened their wagons and sell every thing from shoestrings to horses. There is one wagon which carries nothing but men s caps. The farmers are all in swaypping. There are Polish French and American soldiers here. One old man and woman come by with their grandson who is a bon garcon. They chat with us and are as pleased when we keep telling them how nice he is. Sunday May 3 Louis and I take a ride down the d road for an an hour and a half and get thunder when we return. But it was worth it, this Spring day.We go to St Florentine to a dance at night. I get the same Indian rush I had there before and same nice person as the night before comes after me and takes me home. The Spring is lovely with great white blurs of appleblossoms
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everywhere and golden strips across the fields perhaps mustard. Louis does everything for me. He looks like I had done him a favour when I asked him to do something for me. This is a good farming section about here and the people are so much more kindly than at Haute Marne. At one train an old Frenchman had marched 17 kilometers with the boys and was standing seeing them off with the tears rolling down his cheeks. Sunday 4. We have two more trains. It is hard becaiuse we have just four women very limited equipment. We are doing the work they would have 5p women do in a Cantine at home but of course we have many soldiers details to help us. But the easiest thing in this world to loose is a detail. The real difficulty is the end of the train is so far from [ms illegible] S.O.S. I was acting like a hurracane trying to get them all fed, when one soldier told me," Youre so hard boiled youll be a corporal if you keep on". But we were the only entraining point where they they all go fed. Louis is almost the dearest person in the world It is funny how a person a can be necessary to me when the are with me and after that when they are gone they are not. Suppose nature adapts itself to th kind of life you are destined for. Monday May 5.We have two more trains and we are simply dead tired.. All the soldiers try to steal Toot Sweet. Tuesday May 6. Old Man Stone makes Louis stay and help clean up and thus succeeds in separating i us. We travel to Le Mans where we spend the night. The pup had never been in Paris before but all he would do there was to
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chew on me just as though he were at home. Wednesday 6. We go out to Dollon. Dead tired with lots of our baggage lost including this diary. Thursday 7. We set us a Y in a [ms illegible] and on the public square. by the ancien church. There were some British roller kitchens there , boy scout kitchens the soldiers call them. We used these for stoves. We had perfect swarms of tadpoles around us who simply showered us with lilacs and other flowers. It is lilac time and apple blossoms. These Tadpoles are the cutest litle scamps from three up. Curly headed Madelon d seems to queen it and Ernest bosses the gang. We brought our animal posters and they make the walls gay.We used various sized tin cans for vases. Toot Sweet had the time of his life with the Tadpoles who continued to swarm about. We were their first Americn women. They have the blackest ey Some of the Tadpoles are not really Tadpoles but Belgian orphans The Sabotier has eight children and adopted three of these orphans. He is a lyrical looking square bearded man straight out of Evangaline. He came rushing in to the Infirmary for the sergent because one petit had cut his foot un peu. We went to a damp cellar where one man was weaving some beautiful linen. He had made 100 metres that morning. We had a Tadpole party before I left. They had a drink and cake apiece. I told them "apres les soldat, vous." and they waited contented enough for in France everyone is used to being apres les soldats. Such a little makes
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them happy. You want to do a lot for them but it would spoil them. Friday May 8. I surely hated to leave this. Eden of garcons and gardens but Anna stayed with the first battalion and I came to the third. Here I am a greater curiosity, but they watch me from a distance because the soldiers here before were the 27th division and they surely behaved badly around this town. This is really sunny France. I am relly very rpoud of my Y, I was fiven medium sized room with a table cupboard and fireplace. Ibought enough gay cretonne for curtains. As I was sewing up the curtains a woman across the stree put her head out of the window and asked me to come over. She sewed the curtains up on the machine for me. We put up some posters, sawed some checkers cut of a broom handle, drew some checker boards on the table, made candle sticks out of tin cans, put the birds on the mantle piece, flanked in by lilacs. Tehn I made a hanging baskets full of lilacs from the pups bed and put it in the window. We set up the books and as usual I thanked the A.L.A., in my mind for they sent us well selected books. I filled a lard can with lilacs and set them in the fireplace for it was too warm for a fire. Tonight we had cocoa and cakes and gave them away. I give away oftener than suggested and so far no one has stopped me. At night we put on a chocolate barrage and then collected an orchestra and all sang. It was a real evening. This batallion has never had an American woman. There area good set of officers here but it seems funny to be the only woman at Mess. I simply love these
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great big husky Texans. I fed some to them at the Cantine at Roanoke last summer. They are just wholesome country boys, a little bashful, but regular men. The boys dont like my triangle service stripe and make me sew on one like theirs. It does seem a pity when we share so many things with the soldiers that we cant share their service stripe too. Saturday. I fool around during the day but have another chocolate barrage at night and we sing some more. I know everyone who knows me with scream with laughing or cry when they think of my leading the singing but I do. and they sing. The only trouble with the Y is that it is too small. [Saturday] May 17. Our men entrained. If I feel like theold woman who lived in a shoe must have felt if the State had taken over all her children for an orphan asylum. I certainly want to cry as the do freight train doors of smiling faces and legs disappear with the slowly movi train but who could help sharing their joy in going home. Sunday I get hardboiled. Here was one case when cleanliness ought to come before godliness. I tell the nice little lieut doo goodbye If he loves me as sticky and as covered with chocolate as that he really does. We go to an MP dance at night and have a fine time. Wed 19 Revilee is dead and Rtreat is no more. The cat ate our pretty little red headed birds. I surely did feel badly for we have carried them miles. Toot Sweet is on a rampa We find Tim, the pride of our hearts at the forwarding Camp.
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D See several other of our Candidates. all dressed up in pink bars. They are so glad to see us that it makes us wish we had done lots more for them. I eat supper with Louis at the Cremerie which has the most delightful signIF You Havent an Hour at Your Disposal dont sit down here. I help shop for the hospital boys. Go to a dance out at the IQ 81 division at night. Two soused lietuts give me a rush. We d go down in the street and dance with the enlisted men part of the time. I hope we get a rolling cantine soon and can cut out this debutante stuff which I have not the constituion to stand. Le Mans is the most fascinating place. I could live in the antique stores. which are real, being musty. themselves but have some treasures. Y It is much easier to shop here than in Paris and just as nice things. I will never see a Cathdrial I live more. The old glass in the windows is to dream about, as beautiful as some anthems Friday 3 21 Go out and help get ready for Carnival. Learn more about riding in those two hours than I ever knew in all the years I have ridden. Go to a dance at Central Hut at night. Saturday 22 Make sandwiches at Class Camp for track meet. See Clifforr Dekla My old faincee Louis Payne finds me. Dance at night at the Y. D. hut. Too tired to really enjoy it. Louis brings me home. He his a real man , not a kid Sunday May 23 Stay in bed till noon, Get assigned to a meeting in the afternoon. Have dinner with a major that Anna wishes on me. By a chance I meet Louis. We have two hours.
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Monday [23] Everything amashes. I get ordere d to the country. Chimerie Spend a fearful night. Tuesday 24 I wint say anything about thi day. [Wednesday] 25 Lonesome town major eats with us and then the Colonel orsers him over to their mess. His best girl married some one else in January He said , " I got a letter which was as usual dated the 28 of January and then Jone dated January 30 in which she said she was going to marry someone else . I would like to know what happened ton the 29th of January." We go into town and see Tim and Norton and anna sees Nick. Louis is gone. Thursday 25 I am numb. There is no feeling of any kind left in me. Life is a total loss. We help entrian 7000 troops including Tim and Nick. Frida May 29 The interesting thing about the 15th Cavalry is that they have 51 foreign wives to take home with them. I called on one She was very shy, We are the first American women to be nice to her and her husband was thankful almost o tears. Saturday [May] 30 We acquire Ah Oui a com comerade for Toot Sweet who the 15rth cavalry is rapidly ruining. Lieut Freeman. June 1 Feed the soldiers after a review. P General [John J. Pershing] the politest man in the A.E.F. Instead of lemonade one of the Y girls gave him by mistake unadulterated lemon juice. that as ready to make into lemonade. He drank it all without a change of expression. LOG Book of the L za Jane. I get a rolling Cantine for my brithday.
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She is built for service not for speed. We go to Noyon for the night and find a billet. Mack is our piolet and Toot Sweet and Ah Oui our g dogs are also part of our permanent crew. June 3 We go to La Suze for supplies and itinery but they say go where you like. At four oclock we start with chocolate paste for four 3 c companies The town major told us that companl L and M were together. but we found them two kilo apart. M was camped out at an i old chateau on the river and K at another. We had to send Mac ahead to get the water heated. I'll say this is a lovely work, drivi around this beautiful June weather over wonderfully beautiful country, the best of France, and giving away things to hungry soldiers. At L company they had never had chocolate made for them before. At K we served from th Chateau ste ps and the boys stood around and kidded each other and us. We t ate supper ou under some wonderful old trees. You cant help wanting to go back to these boys every day 36 kilo, [ms illegible] gallons of cocoa, worked from 9 am till 11 30 pm. Got back at 7:30 and went to a dance. 3 companies. June 4. Wednesday We started out to go three places but coupd only make two They were really hungry. this first Pioneer infantry. TWe were way off and theyse Kentucky mountaineers had no chewing tobacco for days which means they have becoje bolschevickis. W.
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11 hours work, 120 gallons of punch, 4 companies. Bull Durham here when one has it can be sold at a franc a sack. It is worse up here than in the trenches as far as supplies go. No transportation. We took lemonade or jamade as they call it. They like to see the differe things you put in. Wed have a line here w till nine oclock f youd stay they said. It was a circle not a line. We decorated Liza ane up like a bride in locusts blossoms The dogs stage a dog fight.
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and a modern tailor suit. Saturday 7. We entrain the 22 engine I regret to state they had been paid beforehand. I go to a dance and meet a young Southerner and a have a new experience. Sunday 8 Restful day almost. Play te Entrain half our first pioneers at 2 P.M. Thank goodness no not paid. Tell my Southerner goodbye. "I do so love you." Monday 9 We get ordered to Paris but climb a wall to keep from getting orders. Go to dance at hunting lodge if Louis XIII A count French there and a Marquise. We move into a lovely billet. Tuesday 10 Loose my voice, acute larngytis. Miserable day. Wednesday 11 Still sick. They come out to find out if I am too sick to go to Paris. Thursday 12 Madame just too good to me. The most delightful French home we have been in. I am really sick. Have a l ght airy room without a tent over the bed. Friday 13 Our landlady gives us a farewell party and kills the pet pigeon. We have cidrer, Bordeau ancien, cognac and rum . At night we go to the next door neighboy's and have vin blanc, casseth, cau de vie and orange. A taste around of each made me silly. Saturday 14 Madame just cried when we left and Monsieur also. They did not want to take us in when we came. At marche two months old pigs were seplling for 3 225 francs. These lovely Breton markets I will never forget
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Noyon will always be to me the ville des frais et des roses. Went out and saw Louis at Forwarding Camp . He has two days to get him company clear and works day and f Fini Louis. Let Lieut Fuller of the 35th .Go to dance at the Masonic Club. I never realized how awful the floor were I have had to dance on till I danced on this good one. Sunday 15. Went over for a bath. On the way home met Lieut Fuller. We g o for a walk in the Horticultur Gardens. Go to K. C. Carnival. He sta over in hopes I am going to Paris the next day. Monday 17. We are in a peculiar position , under orders to go and under orde s to stay. Go to Eccomoy. A row here. Tuesday 2 18 We feed 1550 soldiers on a march lemonade. One slodier drops a Boch helmet at my fee t b t I barely hav have time to smile my thanks before he is gone. Another s ays, ' " I always heard Salvation was free and this lemonade sure is salvation." It was very hot and dusty. The rolling cantine is surely a joyful c occupation.
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June 23. Monday. I was walking down th street with the two dogs behind me They were fighting as usual. T A car passed and a familiar face turned around and laughed at the dogs and then saluted me. It was General [John J. Pershing]. Toot Sweet and I come to Paris. He too a violent fancy to a whiskered gentleman and whiskers to him. When we passed Versaille at nine o'clock we heard a great many guns and the lagoon was bright from the rockets coming up across Of course we thought Peace had been signed but we found later they had only promised to sign. The Y. man at the station told us there was to be no celebration but he didnot know. I found a bed for myself at the Petrograd and an elegant dog house for Toot Sweet which he did not appreciate, but formed another violent attachment to the hotel porter who probably let him sleep with him . I picked up a Y man and went out to the boulevard to investigate th racket. As I stood on the outskirts of the crowd the hard pavement suddenl hit me and I was picked up blesse but too excited to stop and find how. I joined the procession of soldiers, G French, Poles, Italians, Belgians, Tommys, Serbians, Anzacs and Americans. and all sorts of women , street and uniformed. Finally I climbed on top of a cannon with a Marine on one side and a gob on the other, the gob holding me on with one arm and the flag on with the other. Yes I rode down the Boulevard des Itallians this way till we got off and paraded some more. It was queer that hardly anyone was drunk, but no one had time to stop parading and get a drink.
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It was the best natured crowd I ever saw.It you lsot the American soldier on either side of you another quickly came along to see that you were well protected. . You were as safe as you would have been at home in your own garden. Along we went pretty little madoiselles and everyone singing Hail the Gang's all here And it looked like it was all there. Your hat would surely be gone if you left it it on your head. One Waak said a Yank came up to her and said," I havent kissed a Waak since I've been in France. And proceeded to do it thoroughly. She was not pretty but was pleased. At twelve I decided to go home. I was with a Princeton graduate by that time. We started own the street and our turn had come. A ring of laughing filles and poilus surrounded us. He kissed his way out and a pretty fille said to me Embrassez un monsier. I looked ildly to find the least awful looking one to go twards and when I was soundly kissed on hte cheek and they went singing down the street. I found when I went to the docter the next day that I had gtten my thumb out of place, skinned n my nose, knee and lip. I am a sight but much too tired to care. June 3 24. Miss Snodgrass brought me out here in the suburbs and ai I have a room with a bath and they adore Toot Sweet. Fancy a room with a bath after having only seen six bathrooms in more months.
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June 25. I stay at home and rest all day. I am certainly a beautiful object. NOT. Am living the life of Riely out here all right. June 26. Dray my salary check and buy some clothers. Imagine paying 49 francs for a cotton night gown. Well everything in Paris is the same. I buy a negligee that looks like Paris. Mr. Mayo comes out to suppre. They have made Toot Sweet a welcome guest. I meet Lou Wright . June 27. Friday. I go down town and to dentist. June 28. Saturday. Attend to a few things for leaving. Go to sit on the steps of the Madeline at three o'clock. reat crowds surge restlessly up and down the boulevards. There are processions of soldiers and students, schools. Nothing happens till five and then the guns. The crowd gets a little excited but not as much as later. I meet Alice Faeth and we go out with four young lieuts and two other girls. We parade. I come into the possession of a beautiful cap of the Polish general staff. We go up and down the street. The crowd is well bhaved and good natured. I get kissed by three poilus. One liuet with us went up to every American woman and said," I havent kissed you yet," and did regardless of age or face. For there were all kinds out in this celebration. Before midnight no one seemed drunk. No one had time to stip and get anything to drink. I never saw anything like the sponteniety of this Paris celebration. If we have a celebration in the United States they have to collect $50000 , organize some committies
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and then they never approach the joyous abandon of these Parisians. No one is really rough. Everyone is reduced to an absolute level. I will say the Americans there all caught the spirit. One nurse went down the street on the shoulders of two officers. We made rings about people and danced around them. We tired to catch an M.P. but it was not possibleM One Pretty little French r girl danced down the street with a K.C. man on one arm and a Y. man on the other. Early in the evening the boulvards were so crowded thet you could not go fast. One Colonel was wheeling a fille down the street in a wheel barrow and an M.P. came along and kissed her on the back of the neck A man with an accordian would climb up between the pillars on the Place de la Concord and a dance would be assembled. Every street corner over in that d rection dad its dance. A nice young Frenchman came up and asked me to dance . I did. The cute little lieut waited for me. I heard one Frenchman say, Comme elles sont mignon, les Americanes." I will never forget this night. June 29 Sunday. I took the train at noon to go up and try to find Frank Wingfield's grave. Passed through Chateau Thierry and saw lots of ruined villages.. Get off at Chalon and the Y. girl gets me something to eat. Take the train for Suippes and get there about 5. Walk down the road 3 kilo from the gar to the cemetary and find that all the American graves have been moved. The old woman in charge has no idea of the number of that cemetary.
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I am not at all satisfied that this is the cemetary. They tell me to go 5 kilo to Somme Suippes and see the Etat-Civil. U I take the road. It goes by dugouts and a German prison camp It is lonesome and no use talking. By dusk I get to Somme Suipes and get a guide but by the time we get way up in the Pine woods where the Etat-Civil is, it is fermee because it is dimache. Then we go to the cemetary but all the American graves have been moved. I go back and my guide takes me into a cafe and back into the kitchen . A bartender in blue trousers and a red sash tells me there is a cemetary with 50 Americans about 5 kilo from there. The next morning I go to the Etat-Civil and the sergent in charge who speaks some English tells me that Meonmarde Cemetary is the one at Suippes also the same number they gave me. He says only two weeks before an American officer was there and said they were moving all the American graves about there to Romagne. Well I am at still not satisfied until I looked in the American cemetary I saw at Cuperly. I walk back to Suippes and get some pictures of the Cemteary there. I went into the Postoffice and asked the direction and they said Ateendez for un wagon. Finally I climbed in a two wheeled cart with a soldier and we went down the road. He was a bridegroom of a month and was certainly gentil. About 5 kilo do the road Ihe showed me a cemetary with an American flag at one end and a French at the other. He dorve me down there and would not let me pay him anything for bringing me. I must send him some cigarettes.
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This is a very lovely cemetary where there are about 300 Americans buried I suppose. It is flanked in on two sides by beautiful pine trees. and the graves are exceedingly well kepy. A small American flag is on each grave , in fact two of them. I did not find the grave I was huntiny but I found about 30 of the 36 th division boys and planted poppies on their graves. and took their names and numbers. I will write to their families. Then I went on down the road and on the hill I saw a something which lookd like a cemetary. I met a few German prisoners but they were guarded. I wasnt exactly afriad but it was lonely. I climbed the hill to this French cemetary which was well kept up. There I found two American graves b without flags but one grave marked with a stone. I put an American flag there. Bthe these cemetaries were near Camp Layfette, which is abandoned. It seemed all the more lonely with so many buildings and not a soul there. Then I went on to Cuperly where I found one American grave. It was marked and had a flag. I planted poppies on it. I could not find the cemetary I though was there and went on to Vandage. I found three American graves there all arked and covered with pansies. On the way I met a lot of German prisoners and they all got up as well as the guards and looked at me. and said some things. In the villages I passed the few people looked at me strangely and said amazed Americane. I did not stop to talk. At Vendome I went into a tavern and asked them
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if I could get something ot eat. They cooked me eggs and gave me sald. They said the 42nd divison had been there and they were very brave and wonderful soldiers. The girls had an American kodak and asked me to do them the honor to let them take my picture. I posed for it. They would charge me nothing for my dinner because I was an American they said. When I told them I was going on to St. Hilliare they said they would take me in the cart so the three of them an the dog and I climbed into the green cart and drove over. We went to the cemetaire and it seemed as though no American was there and then a Frenchman called us back and showed us under a great bead wreath an American grave. It was a black corss and had in inscription in French and the tricolo mark that all the French graves have. No flag . I will send one to these girls. After tht I got on the train and went back to Paris. I guess I walked about 20 kilo. July 1. I was already to go down town when I found Toot Sweet was dreadfully sick, couldnt stand. I raced to a French pharmacie, then g to a vetinary and then home to give hi a dose. By that time it was 11 o'clock. When I got down I had a notice that Mrs. eade wanted me and I had to go to the dentist. I went into see her and she rebuked me for not being dignified the night peace was signed. I was afriad the cap would be deman I pleaded guildty but who could take a fool thing like that seriously. Then after a hectic rush I got signed
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up and found I did not have money enough to get out of town. I met Mrs Herring and she lent it to me. I went out packed The Lord sent a Y. man to help me acrry my things. T When we were all set they would not take the dog on the street car. There was no time to loose and no taxi. Well i covered th pup and smuggled him on and we made it under guard to the train. Travelled all night. Toot Sweet better. A good traveller. July 2. I came out to Parmi. They refose to take in Toot Sweet but finanl the bell boy adopyts him and we live life of Riely&. Mrs. Foot come to see me. Also Gladys Johynson.
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Tuesday 21. We go to Faveroles for a dance with three women and 300 men. and old shaky floor and two smoky lanterns. Beaucoup hobnails. Yet it was a real frolic. They certai did appreciate it and we enjoyed heari some good English after the Italian batallion. Captain Linquist told us about the little boy he adopted. E Wed 22 Our hut is certainly used. This afternoon , wrestling on the stage, at the piano an Irishman who w knows all the songs there are and a crown around him, the Italian batallion jabbering their native tongue around one stove and the Polish congress arund another, men playing checkers, reading, writing at the tables, others at the wet can and still more kidding the Y girl. or teasing the borrowed canary, and me with a large detail in the kitchen nxt door making doughnuts. Celebration at the dry cantine because the match famine was fini, and beaucoup sweet chocolate to sell, by the way the first we have been able to get. I go over the top of the G I can wi doughnuts. To gay young lieuts asked me to let them act as K. P for me and to my surprize they were thoroughly efficient. Both wore out aprons and when two bucks came in ans kidede us and then realized who they were their faces were a scream. Thursday 23 In the afternoon went to a ball game between of the companies and went down the mess m line Instead of three beans it was two spoons. The officers begged us to eat with them but we wanted to see if it was as bad as the officers said. It
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was. I got beans down one arm, apple sauce down another and my cape flew back over Sweethear's beans and had to be fastened on me. If I had tried to take coffee I am sure I would have gotten a shower bath. Then we went int a cold dark mess hall with a mud floor and ate in gloom. I couldnot to do a thing to cheer up that atmosphere. I was a piker and didnt wash my mess kit.We made cocoa and gave it w away . They kept coming back. one boy said," This giving away cocoa with a smile is wasteful. They throw away the cocoa and come up for another smile. Another said," Oh the reason that fello brings up several mess cups to be filled is because he gets to talk to her longer." A pompous major was in the shower bath room with a fresh young lieut. who was cussing out all high officers The major said, " Young man, do you know who I am.? The lieut said Well you ought to put your rank in your hair if you want people to know who you are in here. Lieut Reynalsds suggested that the men be paid off in cognac. It would save them a half hour. I went down into the moat and saw the dungeon but we could not find the tunnel. Friday. A looie, a lieut and two canidates. Saturday 25 Go to town after supplies T Meet a French funeral. The French never cease to express their amazemetn at the way I ride.. Y Tres uniqur or open mouthed astonishme I start out on a horse that is so rocky that I return for Countoff.
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We are incidents of the war in the lives of these soldiers just as a nur is an incident of their illness. Boots is the Colonel's orderly. He always refers to him as the Kid. The Colonel is a quiet men, but a real soldier.Botts siad," You know the Kid is a lovable thing." Anna asked him, Does he ever talk to you , Boots?B Boot said," Well I have to help him along but he talks a lot to me once I get him started." January 15. One boy who was on guard came into the Canteen noisy drunk. I was afriad the OD would come in and see him and have him courtmartialed so I begged him to go out to t sentry bx about three different times. He went each ime but came back. Finally I took him andhe promised to stay and did until the cold air sobered him. He came in and almost wept thanking me for keeping him out of trouble. Sai it was his first and last time and took the pledge. E We have a good s how every night. The bugler said a story got h in his home papers about the 601 f going over the top. It never did. His mother wrote and told him how proud she was. He wrote her he didnt. She wrote back Dont lie to me Freddy I know you went over the top because I saw it in the paper. [Thursday] 16 A wonderful ride on the Colonel horse. Capt Medine said he did not like t o ride because it got mud on his trousers. so I get to ride this wonder. Friday 17 We went to town and bought lace and took things to two sick b ys, one from Lexington.
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Sergent Brown brought me violets from Paris. Every officer has promised it but it takes a sergent to do things they promise. Mary Paxton Ogilbee born December 23. I just hear about her today. I am happy that they are both so all right. I give Lieut Donovan a chance to say he is sorry. He does in his pigheaded way. [Saturday] 18. Captain Linquist comes up to see us. One boy gets a Christmas box through a chain of R English stores. In t are crackers and corn bill The Tommies may like it. Sunday 19. I have my four regular K. P.s up for doughnuts. We have eggs and French fried. Barny stutters from shell shock. Beutel loks like a dog some one had kicked too often. He has that terrible expression some of them will never loose from their eyes. He needs some kind of human understanding so badly but he is awfully hard to get at. He is one of my unsolv problems and I think he likes being. Ellis walks 18 kilometres every week end to be with us. He is a nice loveable boy. I have had other assisttant from time to time but these are my standbys and Rehmon. The only thing I dread about cooking when I get home is that it will be such a lonesome job. Lieut B paid a call but the soldiers dont object to him. Monday 20 Allan takes the stage H comes up from Canidate sc hool three times and we sit out on the woodpile in front of the house under the cold stars.
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Allan waitstwo hours for me. He says he wont forget me but when he gets to Boston and marches down the street a hero in his own right. Fritz comes up and one lieut goes off mad. Sunday 26 I try to comfort Barney He is one of the dearest lads we have aroud here. He was caught out in the field and badly gassed. He lay there a long time until some one brought him in. He had not stuttered since he was a little boy but when he came out of the hospital he stuttered. They sent him up here to school before his captain saw him For some reason he was not sent back to his outfit right away and then they let him go through months of this Hell, which they all say is worse than the lines and then he is to be sent out a failure because he stutters I told Captain why he stutters and the captain will write a letter to a captain telling why he could not b given a certificate I feel like crying when I look at him He is not a failure in any senseM This is mostly a happy army . Our drummer was playing a tune on the sentry box as he stood on guard. Monday 27 We take a day off and go to the cave of Sabinus with Capt. Lindquist and see Ft de Bonelle We went past a lonesome labor batallion and took the officer along as a guide He said one of his niggers told him," Boss de more I sees of did country de more I thinks of what Columbus did "Another said of No Man's Land," Dey wasnt nuffin dar but trees and trenches, barbwire and shells and Us" On our rumor board we have it that the 60 are to go to Italy to be mustered out and the other 40 to go home from there
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One lieut said to Anna," Miss Blanton, I want to have you a tached to me for duty and rations," Yesterday Fritz said," If I were around you for a week I would be in love with you." Tonight he said,: B It didnt take a week . It took till now." He really means it - now He says he is willing to stay till November when I go home, to be attached to the 601 or anything to be near me The Cani school officers have planned when we go down there to dinner tomorrow to rank poor Fritz so that he will have t sit where he can ot even look at me He says he is going to eat in the chow line with his company He says," If it were one of my company taking you home I could tag along but this way I have to stay in my quarters," A ma has a a hard life who thinks he is in love with a Y girl especially an officer and a shavetail. W Question. Is it all right fora Y girl to go out walking with a soldier, Yes if she keeps on walking. Bruse stands talking to me and the chocolate line shouts in unison," Oh Bruse have to you made and allotment for your children?" Thursday 30 Make doughnuts. Go for fare supper at Marie's with Tim Rehmon, Ellis and Freeman Miss two engagementsz. [Friday] 31 Ellis under arrest for cominy up here AWOL. Saturday Go into town and out to Ft Bonelle to see what can be done to keep Ellis from the Laor batallion Y woman fixes it up. Fritz goes with me . We make doughnuts in the afternoo
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Have a sensible talk with Capt Norcros I am not sure about Allan. Sunday 2 Allan and I go to Humes for dinner Fritz pathetic. Men have no mercy on each other. Allan difficult. Things are getting too involved to be quite happy. Monday 3 We have a baby show. Harry brings me home In it the last time Th se last times are getting on my nerves. [Tuesday] 4 I go to commissary Drag Capt Medinealong . Make doughnuts in afternoo The kitchen is a picture , a gloomy place to start with but the most cheerful place in the world when full of soldiers. The old field t range smo with this green wood. I start out with one sergent and acquire 15 canidates to help me. They have to go to retreat so we finish with seven officers.One spontaneous tribute I get is,"My wife's got to make doughnuts like these." One officer took one bite and looked at me with such rapture I thought he was going to offer me his wordly goods and his friend said it wa all he could do to keep him from coming back and proposing to me. The dentist was started proposing to me when someone came in and interupted him Capt. Norcross took me home. He is my match The Canidates are going home, going to get paid, going on leave Nice and going to get commissioned I go to Ville-sur Suippes w th to see about getting a show. I write up some discharge papers for a man My training as a sob sister helps.
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Thursday we go down to Jorquenay to make doughnuts for Co A of the 601 and eat dinner and supper with the two lonesome officers there. A boy calls me across the street and asks me to have a drink, comes to the kitchen and asks me and asks me in the Y. Then says he is going to the devil as fast as he can His wife jsut died. I tried to show him some reason g for not going to Hell a and he seemed to sober up a little I get stusck up with doughnut dough wor of any time yet. D r Captain waiting for me when I get home. Friday I walk to Lannes in a snow storm with an interpreter and get the method of making the famous Langres cheese, also visit the school. More doughnuts. We eat supper at the Colonel's mess. Saturday. I made chocolate in the morning and met some boys from Co A at the hospital at Humes to give the boys some music OConner has a voice like an angels but sleections of cheap vaudville. Some of my opera troupe were soused , it being pay day and I could not get the idea across to them to sing softly. One nurse came running out and said to Hush a patient was dying. So we left Toot Sweet but one of the zig zag said if we hadnt killed him we had better go back and finish doing it Never again any more soused opera troupe under my chaperonage. At night we went to a farewell part at the Polygon. The Capt. and the Young Hero played a card game to see me home. The Young Hero is a good looser. Both of them have off leaving the other here. Fritz could have gone to Nice two days ago. The Captain was supposed to leav Saturday
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[YMCA letterhead] Wednesday 19 We go down to Chatteau de Loire to give some ice cream to some M.P. The first they have had. They s deserve something having been stationed at Chaumont. We have a supper party down at our kitchen. Thursday. 20 19Saw a pretty [ms illegible] today, the first communion. The acolytes in their red and white, then the little boys awkward, with a white ribbon around the left arm, one of them in a derby hat, all twelve years old, then the little girls like dainty white flowers or white butterflys with their little long waisted dresses and skirts to their ankles and the viels and little bags and gloves and white shoes and the w long c embossed candle held devoutly with hands enclosed in the veils, Between them all the two presittiest carrying the statue of the Virgin and the tiny litte flower girls carrying ribbons out from the statue.
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Friday 21. We come into town because the area is finished. Our kitchen salvaged. Looks like no ships for us to go home on. I collect a fiancee. Dance at Overhaul Park. Saturday 22. F Get ordered to Paris. Dance at Y.D. Hut. Sunday 23. Go to office for movement order.
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The Doughboy knocked at the Pearly Gate, "Where's your pass," said Peter,"Wait." "Three stripes on my left and three on my right." "Spep in," said Peter, "You've fought your fight." The soldier loafed round the city of God and fought the war with a comerade And yet his soul was not content To tell his troubles to Peter he went. "I'd like a pass to Hell," said he, "If its worse than the trenches I want to see." The Saint shook his fist in the doughboy's face. "Soldiers always want to be some other place Fini passes to Hell for the A.E.F. They raised too much Hell on earth itself!
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Recsipes. Punch 120 Gallons half jar orange paste 6 bottles concentrated lime juice 10 dozen lemons 24 cans jam sugar feeds four companies. Cookie recipe 1 cup fat half cup sugar half s cup syrup 4 eggs spices BP 3 T Took two days and three assisstants to make G. I can full. Doughnuts 2 and half pounds fat 5 pounds sugar 3 cans evaporated milk Vanilla Flour to stiffen. half can baking powder. Makes 600doughnuts.
Details
| Title | Mary Paxton Keeley's Diary - July 3, 1918 - June 29, 1919 |
| Creator | Keeley, Mary Paxton |
| Source | Keeley, Mary Paxton. Diary. 3 July 1918 - 29 June 1919. Keeley, Mary Paxton (1886-1986), Papers, 1830-1983. C0848. The State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, MO. |
| Description | In this diary, Mary Paxton Keeley describes her service as a canteen worker with the Y.M.C.A. in France. Keeley, an Independence, Missouri native, was the first female graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. |
| Subject LCSH | Keeley, Mary Paxton, 1886-1986; World War, 1914-1918--War work--Women; World War, 1914-1918--War work--Y.M.C.A.; World War, 1914-1918--Women; Joan, of Arc, Saint, 1412-1431; World War, 1914-1918--Casualties; Thanksgiving; Christmas; Cemeteries; University |
| Subject Local | WWI; World War I; No man |
| Site Accession Number | C0848 |
| Contributing Institution | The State Historical Society of Missouri |
| Copy Request | Transmission or reproduction of items on these pages beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the State Historical Society of Missouri: 1020 Lowry Street, Columbia, Missouri, 65201-7298. (573) 882-7083. |
| Rights | The text and images contained in this collection are intended for research and educational use only. Duplication of any of these images for commercial use without express written consent is expressly prohibited. |
| Date Original | July 3, 1918 - June 29, 1919 |
| Language | English |