Speaking of memories, I had a very special package arrive in the mail this morning. Through posting my family tree on ancestry.com I'd received an e-mail from a cousin of a cousin on my Campbell side. He wrote me that he'd inherited this cousin's letters that her father--one of my great uncles--had sent from France during WWI. My great uncle died just three weeks short of the end of the war in 1918. In fact, I hadn't even known about him until 2001 when we went to Scotland on a holiday and found the family headstone in Dundee Cemetery that listed him as having died in France. Anyway, this cousin offered to mail me copies of the letters as well as copies of photographs of him, his wife and baby daughter. True to his word, he did so and I received them this morning.
The letters from my great uncle to his wife were so touching that I cried. Although he says several times he hopes the war ends soon--the letters were written at the end of 1917 so the end was almost in sight--most of the letters describe his love and concern for his wife and daughter and good wishes for the folks back home. He signed the letters with hugs and kisses and I am left with the impression of a very loving and kind husband and father. His wife never remarried although she survived him by almost 60 years. Included in the papers was a copy of a letter that his CO had sent his widow describing my great uncle as one of the best men he had ever known and how he would never forget him. My great uncle didn't die of wounds, ironically he died of bronchopneumonia. He was in the Labour Corps of the Seaforth Highlanders. He would have been involved in road/railway building and repair, moving ammunitions, possibly loading and unloading trains, and other non-combat duties. I've only picked that up this afternoon and I now have more to read about as a result of this amazing summer.
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