De Grand Family Letters
May 9, 1944 - Letter from Edward De Grand (son of Jules and Isabel De Grand)
to his sister and brother-in-law, Genevieve (De Grand) and H. George Nelson
while in the Army and stationed in England
May 9, 1944
Dear Gen & George,
We arrived somewhere in England several days ago. We came over on an English ship and we had 2 meals a day and I guess I only ate about half of them as the meals were lousy. We are getting real good meals at this camp and plenty of it. We are on 2 hours fast time so its light out until after 10 o'clock at night. We are rationed to 7 packs of cigarettes, 2 razor blades & 1 candy bar & 1 bar of soap per week.
Love to all, Ed.
May 26, 1944 - Letter from Edward De Grand (son of Jules and Isabel De Grand) to his sister and brother-in-law, Genevieve (De Grand) and H. George Nelson while in the Army and stationed in England
England - May 26, 1944
Dear Gen, Geo. and girls,
I received your letter and money this week. This was the first mail that I received since leaving Aberdeen. Our mail has been very slow in catching up with us but I hope it will be better from now on. I've still got the money you sent as we have to change all our money into British money before we can use any of it. It was quite a problem getting used to English money the first few days that we had it but now I get along o.k. with it. The first night in town I'd just hand the clerk a handful of change and let them pick out what they wanted. We are getting very good meals and they're even better than what we had in the States. We had chicken every Sunday so far and are having it again tomorrow. We usually have pudding or fruit for dessert. Everything at the P.X. is rationed so we don't get much of anything there each week. Well here's hoping I get more mail in the near future.
Love to all, Ed.
August 6, 1944 - Letter from Edward De Grand (son of Jules and Isabel De Grand) to his sister and brother-in-law, Genevieve (De Grand) and H. George Nelson while in the Army and stationed in France
France - Aug. 6, 1944
Dear Gen, Geo. and girls,
I received the letter you wrote July 4th, this week. It took almost a month getting here. All of our mail was delayed since we got in France so I suppose it will be coming along better from now on.
We haven't played any cards since leaving England. All the French money is paper and as far as I know they don't use any silver money. Their franc is worth about 2 cents in our money. I'm enclosing a 2, 5 and 10 franc note. We get our rations of cigarettes and candy bars free so I haven't spent a cent since I got in France.
We haven't been kept so busy this week and have had a chance to catch up on sleep. We get the Army newspaper "Stars & Stripes" every day so I usually spend part of the evening reading it. We also got some books from the special service Army branch and I've gotten around to reading a few of them.
I got pretty well caught up on cigarettes before leaving England so I won't need any of them for awhile. You could send me some homemade candy if you can get the stuff to make it with. Well guess I'll close for now.
Love to all, Edward