Letters To The Farm Boy

Excerpt from Letters to the Farm Boy While the following letters were written especially for the farm boy, the record of the sale of the two previous editions proves most conclusively that the farm boy's father is as much interested in them as the farm boy him self. Nor should this be a matter of surprise, for in reading them he lives over again what is ordinarily the happiest portion of his life. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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"Ralph Witten was my mother Emily's oldest brother. His granddaughter Anne Witten Fried, my husband Maurice and I have transcribed and edited his handwritten letters home about his infantry experiences during World War I. Although we attempted to transcribe the letters exactly as written, the age and condition of the letters occasionally made transcription difficult. Minor omissions or mis-interpretations are inevitable. We decided to use his own words and spellings, as written, keeping in mind that these are the writings of an 18-year-old farm boy written over 100 years ago. Though, occasionally no longer acceptable, the language reflects the time and place. In an effort to be true to the letters, the language is included in this book as he wrote it. The names and relationships to some of the persons mentioned in the letters are listed in an appendix." -- Forward (page 5).

In November 1941, the war that had been raging in Europe since 1939 and in China since 1937 was coming closer and closer to the United States. The US had instituted the draft in 1940 and on November 4, 1941, more than a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the war came home to the family of Annie and Harvey Berkey on their farm near Elton, PA. That was the day when their middle son, Bob, received his draft notice. This book presents something of their experience of the war through a compilation of the letters that his family received from Bob as well as entries from Annie's diaries and the headlines and articles from their local newspaper, the Johnstown Tribune. It is a story of how an ordinary farm family from the hills of western Pennsylvania coped with the extraordinary circumstances of being caught up in a global conflict.