DEAR JEANNIE: LETTERS HOME FROM WWII
Lou Winsauer and Jean Johnson didn’t have a classic love story. They were a pair of strong-willed rebels who ran with a crowd that called themselves The Dawn Club. When they married, neither of their fathers attended the wedding.
Their tempestuous marriage ended in divorce after 10 children, but (after a cooling-off period) they rebuilt a cordial relationship that lasted for the rest of their lives. She saved the letters he sent home while serving as an army medic, and they are published here along with a few other letters that were preserved.
And no, he never learned how to spell “reveille”.
"An absolute breach of something or other" - March 24, 1943
Hello again, way up there where the snow is probably still two feet deep. Spring has set in with a vengeance down here and the last few days have really been beautiful. Warm and sunny and more like summer than merely early spring. The old-timers here however, just shake their heads and say “Just wait, this weather is as false as a plugged nickel, in two days you’ll be wearing woolens and overcoats”.