Letter or Postcard – Letter
Sender – Ralph Peterson
Recipient – Phyllis Peterson
Postmark Place – St. Petersburg, Florida
Postmark Date – 25 March 1943
Letter Date – 24 March 1943
Text:
My dearest Phyllis and Bonny girl,
Now that I have two girls to write two instead of one I suppose you will expect longer letters. This one might not be very long, as there isn’t much to talk about so early in the morning. Right now it is just ten to six. I wasn’t hungry this morning and I wanted to write to my sweet little girls so I didn’t go down and eat. They don’t have a heck of a lot in the morning anyway. This morning I woke up and my neck was all red with blood. I had a pimple there and I must have picked it in my sleep. Right after I got that stopped I blew my nose a little too hard and that started bleeding. It wasn’t very bad though. Gee whiz honey, I don’t know what to write about this morning, but I will try and tell you something new. Today will be my last day of basic training, so if I don’t get shipped right away I will tell you what will happen. I will be moved to another hotel, be put in a different squadron until I get pushed out. This other squadron is named Squadron X. That don’t sound so good, but you just send the mail the same as always and I will keep on getting it. You can even send more if you want to. If there is one thing in the world that I won’t holler at you for, that thing will be sending letters to me. Maybe I haven’t told you all I know about Florida and this town. There is supposed to be near or over one million soldiers down here. I mean in the whole state. Every hotel in this town has been taken over by the government and ours is one of the smallest ones. Even so, it holds 500 men. Another thing, it is turned cold down here. The last few days the temperature has dropped way down to 36 above. It is still windy, though. I suppose seeing that spring has started it is nice and warm up there. I can’t think of anything else to write about, honey, so I guess I will have to close. This looks awful short but it will be a longer one tonight. Until then, lots of love to the sweetest wife and baby a guy could ever ask for. Bye now, Phyllis and Bonny, from your Daddy. I love you.
PS – Be awful good to yourself and our little baby girl. God bless you and goodbye for now. Ralph
Notes: Dad had a lot of bloody noses when he was a kid, but usually from playground fights. Many years later, when we were visiting Wisconsin we drove by his old school. As we did, he mused, “I left a lot of blood in that grass.”