January 9, 1919 -- A Small Crush on Helene; Off to Echternach, Taste of Comfort

Echternach, Luxembourg

January 9, 1919

 

Dear Ones at Home:                                                                                   

            Once more I’ll take my pen in hand long enough to drop you a line and tell you where I am located.  We are now on the Sauer River, the boundary between Germany and Luxembourg.  We moved up here the fourth of January from Medernach.  That was sure some town.  It’s the first place we were ever in on this side where people seemed genuinely sorry to see us go.  And the best of it was that we did not seem overly welcomed when we first landed there.  But the whole command acted fine while there and there were many places where tears were shed at parting.

            I was rather surprised and genuinely touched when the old lady told me the little girl from Belgium was crying because we were going away.  I doubted it at first, but seeing is believing.  Guess it is just as well we left when we did.  But what a damnable shame she must, or at least probably will, remain in this country to be wasted in a life of drudgery for some unappreciative, lazy peasant husband.  Every time I think of it it makes me sore.  Well, if I say much more you will think I left my heart at Medernach, whereas it is still beating in the same old place.  But I’ll not deny that Helene Heirenitz [See end of blog] is the first little European girl to make it beat faster, and I’ll long remember her parting handclasp and the tremulous smile as we passed around the corner and left her standing in the doorway.  So geht es im Krieg. 
            This is quite a little city.  It is on the Sauer River (the boundary between Luxembourg and Germany proper).  The office here is in a hotel, a fine place.  Makes one think of home with the running water and such conveniences.  As yet we are out of luck on baths tho but hope they come next. 

We have an elegant room too.  At last I have found a real bed – sheets, down coverlet and all.  And electric lights that you can turn off form the bed.  Really, the room is better furnished than most of us are used to at home, but tit still lacks the indefinable “something” necessary to bring complete content and repose.  There is a movie show in this town, too.  When we get some pay we will try to take that in too.

            The people we are billeted with are very well educated and refined.  The family consists of the father and mother, two boys (who speak English) a little girl, the maid and dog Florrie.  Four of us (Sgt. Bates, Corporals Willet and Sherwood and Pvt. Johnson) all from the office force, occupy the room I spoke of.  I can make a rough sketch of the arrangement.  There is an electric light over each wash stand – lace curtains on the windows and a centerpiece on the table, rugs on the floors.  We are doing our best to recover part of the badly battered fragments of civilization in our makeup under these surroundings. 

As I suppose you are getting curious to know if my pen slipped above here, I may as well say that yesterday morning I was appointed Corporal.  So now I am an Unter Officer as the Germans say.  Guess I’ll send a copy of the orders along with this as long as I’m file clerk and have an extra copy. Now I guess I will have to ring off or I’ll be busted for non-attention to duty. 

 

 

Oh!  I forgot to tell you about our trip here from Medernach.   We saw a real “castle,” one of the long gone by medieval days.  It is badly ruined, and no one now lives in it I understand, but as we wound around the steep side of the mountain we passed it and then followed the hill around till we were on a level slightly above and to one side of it.  How I wished for films for the kodak.  But I have the picture in my mind and I’ll try to get some postcards which may give you a faint idea of how it looks.  It sure is a massive structure, the grey, grim walls rising in one place at least eighty feet.  Ad the grim turrets, with their slits of windows make one realize that life in one of them must have lacked much in brightness and comfort, in spite of the highly colored pictures and stories of the glorious days of knights and chivalry.  Oh!  How Mother would enjoy the scenery and natural beauty. I have been privileged to see in the last month, not to mention father, sisters and brothers, and auntie. I only wish you might all enjoy it. Censorship rules will make it possible to send me a couple of films with the next magazine. Please try it anyway.

                                                            Love to my dear Ones,

                                                                         Corp. George Sherwood

                                                                        108^th US Engineers

                                                                        American Ex. Forces 

 This is the back of the photo postcard with the three children, the sheep and the dog.  No guarantee this is the Victor Kries family, but this seems likely.   

This is the postcard apparently with Helene's address and note.  No idea why she has postcard of General Field Marshall von Mackensen.  May just be lack of other paper available.  He lived 95 years and was in both WWI and WWII. He was on the other side in this war so this is an oddity!