Bradley Downing letter to Mother - October 20, 1918
Transcript
[American Y.M.C.A. letterhead] October 20, 1918 Dear Mother: And still we are in Paris. But I think that this is the last week here, and we are sure to leave before next Sunday. It has been a quiet and rainy week, and the cold is very penetrating. It is a trick to keep warm at night, but I have solved the problem very nicely, thank goodness. Just as warm as toast. I employ my shelter half, poncho, three blankets, coat, overcoat, and a sweater, together with a hay tick, and it is hard to get up in the morning. Last night we were flooded out. We had no ditches around the tent, just a level ash floor, and it rained cats and dogs. The result was that when we got up this morning we found that shoes, mess kits, and all sorts of things had floated away from the bed. My shoes were swimming, and as for my barracks bag, ---well, it will take a hot sun to dry it out, -and I doubt if the sun will ever come strong enough and long enough to accomplish the same. I didn’t go out Wed. Thurs. and Fri. nights but stayed and watched the office, wrote a couple of letters and read a great deal. Last night, however, I went with one of the boys down to the Hotel Jena again, and dawnced the evening away. It didn’t start until nine, and it was over at ten, but that was long enough for me to get drippin’ from perspiration, as usual. I wonder if I will ever be able to dance withour getting all mildewed. This was the fourth Saturday in Paris, and three of them I went down to dane. The little [Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps] was there again, and I had some good dances with her. There was an awful mob there, more than have ever been there before, I think, and there were a bunch of Red Cross girls, just over from home. There were a bunch of new English girls, too, bloomin’ Britishers, b’jove. I had a fine time, as usual. The last dance was funny. I was steering straight for one of the RC goils, from Philly, when a British officer intercepts me, eyeglass and all - a Captain. He says,
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[page 2] “Pawdon me, sir, but are you looking for a waltz?” Of course I was, so he led me up to an English girl with whom he had been sitting, and then went and got the girl I was aiming for! Well, the Britisheress started off with a set idea of how to waltz, and never paid any attention whatever to how I might want to lead her. She skipped from one side to the other it measured tread, as though she had learned it that way in dancing school, and she had never departed from it. We stumbled around the floor all through the dance, and finally, in the encore, I asked her if she would be so good as to keep to the music. Not that way, you know, but in words to that effect. I told her that we americans could never get on to the English way of dancing, and she said no, the American way was quite different, but that she had been learning the American way, and thought she made wonderful progress. Another one, a [Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps], a friend of the one I got interested in, was funny as the dickens. I had a one step with her, and we got talking of accents of different peoples. She confided to me that she was secretly learning the broad American accent, and on asking her why she replied that she was doing it so that she could shock her family when she got back home. They had warned her particularly against it! She was greatly surprised when I informed her that there were at least a dozen distinct American accents. I illustrated some of them by stories, and believe me! I included the Pennsylvania Dutch. Then we both pretended that we were French, and knew only a leetle Engleesh. She was quite a parleyer of the French, and I refuse to comment on what I think of our ability in that line. After imbibing much orangeade and sandwiches we wended our way homeward, just before midnight and the heavy rain which made us swim to reveille this morning. Yesterday as a group of the office forces were sitting around the stove in deep discussion, the subject came upon osteopathy. And in the discussion it developed that the Detachment sgt. of Mobile #9 (they go out today) was an osteopath. He is a grad of Kirksville, [1916], and is from Scranton. He lived at 821 Quincy Ave. His name is George Howard, and after leaving Kirksville he practiced awhile in Marion, [Illinois]., where is wife is now, I think. He says he went doen to Washington and saw Gorgas - who wouldn’t listen to him.
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[page 3] So he joined the Med. Dept., and now, as I said, is detacment Sgt of Mobile Hosp. 9. Now that 9 is going, it means that we leave soon. No mail has come yet, although I did received the “Treat Em Rough” and the [August] 24 Digest and several Dispatches. But no letters. Aint it awful mabel. If we don’t get a bunch before we leave our present place of residence I’m afraid that we will have a few nuts to take care of on the way to the front. We all know there’s scads of it waiting at the Central Post Office, but no savvy letters. A funny thing happened the other day, with regard to the second class mail that has been coming in. One of the boys who came over with us in Base 8 got a bundle of papers. When he came into the office to get it he glanced at the cover, and gave a good imitation of tragic grief. “Look at that! If that aint the most unkindest cut of all!” Across the paper was written “Not known at [Base Hospital Number 8]” We got our gas masks this week, and have been having drill regularly. The masks are the American ones, and are just like what you see in the advertisement of some cocoanut firm in the Saturday Evening Post. Save Cocoanuts shells. Buy our product and help to win the war. You know. But our tin dips haven’t come yet. Maybe we will be issued them up on the line. But according to one of the officers who has just returned from four or five months’ sojurn at the front, the masks will be the important thing. They are certainly hard to get used to, - having your nose pinched thata way, especially if you have as hard a one to get ahold of as I have. Ans swallow. It is an art to be able to do it. Tomorrow we go into the mysterious place known as the gaschamber. Isn’t it great that the English have captured Ostend. Of course that will be forgotten by the time this gets to you, but they certainly are getting the old boche down on his knees. I hope we arrive in time to see some real fighting, but of course there is no doubt about that. One week wont end the war. In my last letter I enclosed the necessary slip to admit a 3 lb Christmas package. Just imagine how fortunate I was last year. I certainly got enough stuff to make it last for two or three Christmases. But if I get a few letters I will be thinking it is a happy Christmas. And a little coin will go very well, as I have probably remarked before. Chocolate is hard to get, so will you please enclose some Caillers, if you can get any, or Nestles, or something like that. Back to Base 8 we got all sorts of good chocolate coated candies, but Paris is dry as a bone. Can’t get anything. It is hard to even but cigarrettes. BUT IT COULD BE WORSE, Don’t it? Take it all in all, we are a mighty fortunate lot. For the last week they’ve been having a great celebration down in the Place de la Concorde. It is an immense “Center Square,” and they have lined up all sorts of german guns and stuff that has been captured in the last drive. It is the instance of the 4th Liberty Loan. I was going to take out a couple of these, but I went so deep in my own little private Paris liberty loans that I don’t dare to make an allotment or anything until I get square. S’long, mother. A million kisses and everything. Love to all. I’ll send a note or short letter or something just before we depart for the unknown, so you’ll know we’ve gone if I don’t get much of a chance to write for a time after that Loads of love, Pvt. [Bradley C. Downing] [Mobile Hospital Number 10, American Expeditionary Forces]
Details
| Title | Bradley Downing letter to Mother - October 20, 1918 |
| Creator | Downing, Bradley |
| Source | Downing, Bradley. Bradley Downing letter to Mother. 20 October 1918. Pvt. Bradley C. Downing letters. 2012.51.02. Museum of Osteopathic Medicine, Kirksville, Missouri. |
| Description | Private Bradley C. Downing wrote to his mother on October 20, 1918 from Paris, France. In this letter Downing discussed a dance he attended, the possibility of leaving Paris for the front, drilling with gas masks, and other activities he witnessed in Paris. |
| Subject LCSH | Osteopathic medicine; World War, 1914-1918--Medical care--United States; World War, 1914-1918--Women; World War, 1914-1918--War work--Red Cross; World War, 1914-1918--Chemical warfare |
| Subject Local | WWI; World War I; Gas mask; Women's Army Auxiliary Corps |
| Site Accession Number | 2012.51.02 |
| Contributing Institution | Museum of Osteopathic Medicine |
| Copy Request | Requests for permission to publish or reproduce material should be directed to the Curator, Museum of Osteopathic Medicine, 800 West Jefferson Street, Kirksville, MO 63501; telephone 660-626-2359. |
| Rights | The text and images contained in this collection are intended for research and educational use only. The Museum of Osteopathic Medicine does not claim to hold the copyright for all material; it is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of other copyrights. |
| Date Original | October 20, 1918 |
| Language | English |