Saturday

Dear Dad,

I suppose that you have been to Lebanon, looked in the windows and had your chocolate ice cream soda. It won’t be very long until we wander the streets of Boston or Lebanon some Saturday evening.
I wish you could have seen the parade today; it was beautiful. We are in a nine man front (nine women in each rank) preceded by our officers and the colors. We marched around in front of the reviewing stand and back to our places. I was back near the end today as we were lined up according our height. I am going to buy a Chatanooga paper tomorrow because I think they took some pictures.
I got your nice long letter today and the package. You addressed it so I am writing to you and by the way I passed them around and all that is left is the box. They all thought they were delicious.

I think I will take the rest of the pictures on one film and will send them to you.
Next Sunday I think we are going on another Company Outing up to Lookout Mountain. I think it is near Chatanooga. We are going to buy our lunch there.
We have had the Prisoners of War working around the barracks on the walks. They do all the hard labor around here.Some of them look quite American and others look quite foreign.

We were told the other day that there were 77,000 WACs and there are 700,000 jobs to be filled. Most of the training for WACs is done on this post so you can see there (are) alot of us here. Officer Candidate School is also on this Post.

Love Dot

POWs arriving at camp in Georgia. Photograph, National Archives

This noon we had lemon pie for dessert. Tonight we had hamburg loaf ketchup, corn, cauliflower, a delicious oatmeal cookie and cold cocoa. I like everything. After working in the kitchen yesterday I can see why it is rationed. The butcher began about breakfast time and worked all day at that until almost supper time. I heard her say it was the third cow in three days. One crate of oranges just for fruit for her breakfast, fried egg for each this morning. The German prisoners make the bread.

I think there are quite a few prisoners here-doing most of the dirt work with trucks. You see a couple of them in back with an American MP and gun guarding.

After completing basic training, Dorothy was stationed in Boston for the rest of her service. She did clerical work that she enjoyed and made life-long friends. She came back to Norwich in 1946 and returned to her job at Dartmouth Printing where she worked for a total of 50 years. She lived in the family home on Main Street for the rest of her life. In the early 1980s Virginia Berg, a close friend from Dorothy’s WAC days, and her husband Frederick, joined her at her house in Norwich. It was a lovely arrangement that allowed the women to reminisce on their shared past and to share in the gardening that they both loved. Dorothy passed away in May 2002.

Thanks to NHS volunteer Nancy Morley for her research and writing.
Letter narrated by Jeannette Davis, Hanover High School.