Tag Archives: WWI

December 24, 1917

Camp Stanley, Dec. 24 1917

Dear Papa and Mama,

I have been ordered to report to Kelly Field in San Antonio on the 26th. I am assigned to the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps. A number of men are being sent there who have trades and will be used in France, but before sending them they will be given training. A large number of the officers here are sent there for duty to train them.

December 24, 1917

December 24, 1917

We have not had any further vacations and it is understood that we will not have any more. We begin active work with our companions on the 27th. Have not had time to buy any Christmas presents. Most of the men here have not sent any either.

I understand that we will have quarters in a wooden frame building. We will get meals for $1.05 per day. You already know that we furnish our own clothes etc.

Leon Cygon is yet in camp here and has not been assigned but they may assign him at any time. He did not want to try this temporary duty at Kelly Field. If I like it I may transfer to that section. If I do not like it, I can return to the Infantry. I cannot tell just what is ahead of us.

With love to all and a Merry Merry Christmas, I am, Always, Walter.

Address me: Lieut. W. E. Dove, Kelly Field, Aviation Section, South Aan Antonio, Texas.

Put “Lieut” on letters so that my mail goes to officers quarters.

Another page enclosed in the same envelope:

Christmas Day

Your letter came this morning and I enjoyed it very much. I appreciate the package you were to send me today but I have my doubts as to whether it will reach me or not. We will probably be at Kelly Field but I’ll try to have it forwarded from here. I appreciate the fact that Mrs. Bennett of Meadville is to send a package and of course I will write a few lines of thanks upon receiving it.

We are to have a real good dinner today. The meals have been very good since I came back and I understand that they are good at Kelly Field.

Graduation

Born and raised in Franklin County, MS, Walter E. Dove attended the local one-room schoolhouse until the teacher declared that he had taught the boy all he knew. Barely a teenager, Walter became the first in his family to go to college, and in 1913 he graduated from Mississippi A&M. He promptly got a decent job at Armour and Company, a meatpacking operation in North Dakota. After about a year, he switched jobs to become a Scientific Assistant with the US Department of Agriculture. Based in Dallas, he studied agricultural pests throughout the Southwest.

Walter E. Dove's first academic credential.

Walter E. Dove's first academic credential.

Around the time Walter was moving to Dallas, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, setting in motion a chain of events that would soon change the world, and Walter’s life, forever.