SERVICEMEN WRITE (to Joy Hanson, Editor of the Ellsworth News)
From Arkansas
Camp Chaffee, Arkansas.
Dear Joy:
Well, here I is, down in Arkansas with Bob Burns and all those kinfolks that he talks about, and did we ever have a train ride. They put us on the train in Des Moines at 8 o’clock Saturday night and got to Camp Chaffee Monday morning and we got “Sittin’ seats” all the way—no sleepers.
Well, the weather is nice and warm down here and hope it is good up there.
Well, I believe you can send my Ellsworth News down here—it looks like “Uncle Sam” wants me here for a while.
Pvt. Bennie (Clayton) Marcus.
(Private Marcus’s address will be found in another column, along with a number of other new addresses this week.)
But confidentially, Clayton, (Bennie, I mean), the army has a way of its own. All these years we’ve been calling you “Clayton,” when along comes the army and says it’s “Bennie,” and Bennie it will be. You remember that old Swede story, don’t you? The Swede had been over here for a few years and he began to complain. He said: “I just got to where I could call it ‘yelly’ when they shange it to ‘yam.’” Good luck, Bennie, and make that big brother of yours get in by 9 o’clock every night.—Joy
Source: Ellsworth News, Ellsworth, IA, Dec. 30, 1942
Bennie Clayton ‘Clayton’ Marcus was born Feb. 10, 1901 to John And Anna T. Knutson Marcus. He died Nov. 23, 1979 and is buried in Mamrelund Cemetery, Randall, IA.
Private Marcus served with the U.S. Army in World War II.
Source: ancestry.com
