LETTER #72 - 15 APRIL 1945 TO HIS KID BROTHER, TOM

My Little Notes:  I love all the big brother advice!  Being over a 5 year span between them, can definitely make a difference.  He does give good advice though. Not sure why my Dad did not go to Lane Tech, but I know that he went to Steinmetz High School for two years and then to Washburne Trade School as mentioned in the previous post. My Dad stayed with his carpentry skills pretty much throughout his life like his father did.

Yes, it definitely was an untimely death for President Roosevelt with WWII still going on. Just 16 days later Benito Mussolini was captured and executed; 2 days after that Adolf Hitler commits suicide; and on May 8, 1945 Victory in Europe is declared.  Also, interesting they declared a Day of Mourning for the President...something I did not realize. 

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies April 12, 1945.

Chicago Newspaper Front Page

The Newspaper talks about Day of Mourning, probably the day my Dad had no school.

Death of a president link

This Day in History, FDR dies

1945 WWII Timeline Link

LETTER #71 - 3 APRIL 1945

My Little Notes:  Seems like Uncle Louie was quite impress with the recent care package!  He talks about my Dad and his parents wanting to send him to a school in St. Louis.  I am guessing it was an Art School or a Technical School.  Lane Tech in Chicago is a technical college prep high school that he also mentions.  My Dad went to neither.  He ended up going to Steinmetz High School where Uncle Louie did; however, my Dad only went to High School for 2 years and dropped out (pretty common back then).  He did enroll and went to Washburne Trade School where he was learning his carpenter skills (like his father's profession).  In January, 1951 he enlisted in the US Navy in the Seabees.

Uncle Louie also mentions about plane crashes and one fatality as one man fell 10,000 feet.  I could not find anything on this, but there is a cemetery at Fort Bragg and it was customary at the time that any accidents that occurred there, the soldier would be buried there.

He also talks about his friend Al is in Europe (European Theater) and he thinks he will end up in China.  I am not sure about China, but Uncle Louie will serve in the Pacific Theater.


History of Fort Bragg Main Post Cemetery according to Find-A-Grave website:
"Fort Bragg Main Post Cemetery was established during the 1918 influenza pandemic for interments of civilian workers (most Puerto Rican) whose remains, for a number of reasons, could not be shipped home. Between the wars the post was an artillery base, and the cemetery was mainly used for the burial of dependents. In 1940 Fort Bragg was designated as a Selective Service Reception Station, and in 1942 Fort Bragg and nearby Camp Mackall became major airborne training sites. A number of interments from that period were from training accidents, but there are also several German POWs buried here (Row 26) who either died accidentally or from disease. After the war, the cemetery took on its main responsibility as a veterans' cemetery for the central North Carolina area. The cemetery was closed to new interments after the nearby Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery in Spring Lake was established in the 1990s."

Link to Find-A-Grave memorials from Fort Bragg Main Post Cemetery