About Me

Born August 4, 1894 in Auburn, New York to William and Alice Beardsley Woodruff Hills. Younger brother Carroll Beardsley Hills and younger sister Mary Day Hills. Educated at St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire and Princeton University, class of 1917

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Letter dated March 1, 1918

Dear Mother:

I suppose I haven’t been much lately on the correspondence but the fact is that I haven’t at present even enough time to wash and shave let alone write letters. I am still on the same work I have been that I wrote you about that is observation but there have been a lot of changes in the men and with it all quite a lot to do so the result is that about eighteen hours a day is my average and in the remaining six I sleep and eat. It is a great life, tho in the present weather conditions, chiefly mud, rain and snow all I can do is to wish it were all over and I could come home. Shooting Bosche may be good sport in fine weather, but when you have looked out into a night as black as a hat for about four hours with the wind howling about a gale and a mixture of snow and rain in the air, all the time waiting for something to happen that didn’t happen, war loses its romance with a sickly thud, and I can’t help thinking of the people who are at home in comfortable barracks, etc. And crazy to get to France to fight.

I have one thing I am glad about, tho. I am not forgetting my French and in fact am learning more all the time. The other observation officer and myself are taking our meals and sleeping in the same dugout with the French observers who are next to us and the result is wonderful, as when we eat we eat very well, and the abri is very comfortable comparatively speaking.

How is Auburn’s crop of brides and babies coming on? I dreamed not long ago that I came back and found that the whole town was made up of nothing but orange blossoms, wedding breakfasts and baby carriages all turned out with the most surprising speed. This is about all for now for I have got to work as usual, so good bye with love, Paul

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