I have re-typed the above letter
since it is so hard to read...fading ink. You can see that Gold had excellent
calligraphy skills, and that made it extra hard for my mother to dispose of
these letters after the relationship was over ~ they were so beautiful ~ plus the fact that my father was
not a 'poetic' type, and I'm sure did not write love letters to her...
November
30th, 1918
My
Dearest Little Billie:
I just received a dandy letter from you written Oct. 24th, and you don't know
how good it made me feel. I hoped by this time that your mother and Helen are
fully recovered from the 'Flu,' and that this will find you all well and happy.
You mentioned the new arrival at my sister's home, which I learned in the first
letter I received on this side, and I sure feel big to be his uncle. You know
I've often wondered especially in the past few weeks, how things will be
changed when I return. It will soon be a year since I've been in the service
and I've often thought of that one wonderful Sunday when I was home last spring
to see you. It is still as fresh in my memory as though it was yesterday, and
yet it seems as tho' there were years and years between then and now. Every
evening when I go to bed, I see you as you used to be sitting by the library
table where I used to come running to your house from the train, and I pray
that it will not be so very long until I can come again, and meet you in just
the same way. I am just the same as then, only perhaps I love you more, now
than ever before. I was thankful this Thanksgiving Day, thankful for your love,
thankful that this was all over, over here, and that I may now return to you
whole, and the same as I left. I like to have you say things like that one
sentence; it helps so much over here where one can get very lonesome at times,
for I love you a great deal.
We are still at the Balloon School near Bordeaux. I am still attending
school but expect to finish in a few days. We had a lecture today on aerial
photography accompanied by a great many [lantern] slides and it was the most
interesting lecture of the course. I am getting along fine, am very healthy. It
is rumored that we may leave here with the next week or so but whether it is
for home or the front, we do not know, but we are all praying to get back to
good old America as soon as we can.
I will close now and await the next letter from the loveliest sweetest and best
girl in the World. I close with heaps & hugs of love and a good night
kiss.
God bless you.
Your
devoted, Gold
[Censors mark to the left of his signature]
P.S.
Always remember me to all of the family.
More postcards from Bordeaux...
The top card was to my mother, and contained the following message:
Camp De Souge, France
Dec. 3, 1918
My Dearest Sweetheart:
Greetings! I hope this finds you well and happy, and altho' I am not with you, my heart is, and I hope to soon be with you! Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a most Happy New Year and many, many more! With all the love in the world, I am...
Your devoted [Notice censor's signature]
Gold
"Je amour vous" ~ "[I love you - written in shorthand]" some more.
And...to his little sister, Gold writes on the back of her postcard:
The soldiers were apparently given a little book of Christmas Carols, according to the caption on the back of the booklet. It says, "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year To The A.E.F. from the Y"
The carols in the booklet are listed in the margins of this page.
Gold Sonneborn died in 1942, and although I do not have documentation of how he died, it may have been during World War II, since he was a very competent soldier. In any case, their relationship ended after he returned from France. My mother had begun to date Harold Brownell of Sac City, and she had fallen in love... Harold gave her a diamond lavalier which was a tiny flower with a small diamond at its center. The lavalier hung on a fine gold chain, and I was very intrigued by it as I looked through my mother's jewelry. I even asked her if I could wear it, and I did, on several occasions. My sister Dorothy Ann asked for that lavalier when the family was going through my mother's belongings before she moved into the nursing home (I will try to tell a story about that day...be sure to remind me, if I forget!) In any case, Dorothy Ann got the lavalier, but it was later stolen, along with her wedding rings from her marriage to Jimmy Herman, when her home in NW Cedar Rapids was robbed. Sad to lose a part of the family heritage, both in the loss of the lavalier, and the loss for my sister of her wedding set from her beloved Jimmy.
The photo above is of Harold Brownell, and I know he was my mother's first true love. As was told on the last page of the scrapbook above, Harold was a student in Ames, and participated in some kind of chemical experiment which blew up and injured him badly. He did return to Sac City to recuperate, but came down with tubercular meningitis, and he was taken to Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines, traveling by train. He died in the hospital on November 20, 1919, and is buried in Oakland Cemetery, in the World War section, and his photo above shows him in his World War I uniform. (He served in France as well, but returned to Sac City earlier than Gold's return.) Harold was born in 1900, so he was just 19 years old when he died. My mother was heartbroken, and made a needlepoint pillow which was buried with Harold. The inscription on the pillow was a quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson:
" 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
My mother's entry into her biography about what happened between Gold and her, and then her relationship with Harold...
"The war was over, and I had been going out with Harold Brownell who had returned from France some time before my other boyfriend was discharged. I thought a lot of Harold, and we were talking of marriage when he finished school at Iowa State at Ames.
"When Gold came home I had to tell him about my other friendship. It was hard for me to tell him because he wanted to marry me when he got home.
"But my plan to marry Harold was thwarted when he was injured in a laboratory explosion at Ames and he had to come home to recuperate. He became very ill after a few days and was taken to Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines. There were no helicopters to fly people to hospitals quickly. So, he was transported on a cot in the baggage car on an evening train going to Des Moines. There his illness was diagnosed as tubercular meningitis and he died there.
"His death was very hard for me because I loved him, and he was planning on giving me an engagement ring at Christmas. But he died in November, and my dreams of a future with him ended."
Next post I will enter some other memorabilia my mother kept from her youth, as well as some Valentines that my father gave to various friends when he was a very young man. All of these items are about 100 years old or more, and are precious to me because they tell me more about my parents and their early lives,
before I was even a 'glimmer in my father's eye!'
before I was even a 'glimmer in my father's eye!'
Stay tuned...
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