The Mankato free press., 1917-11-23

From Archie Crane, son of Mr.. and
Mrs. D. e. Crane, written to his
mother while he was being trans
ferred from Camp Lewis, Wash, to
Camp Mills, New York.
Dear Mother: Will drop you few
lines before get too far away, as I
was only fifty miles from Mankato last
night. Wish you had known SO that
you could have come to see me. /
certainly would have liked to have
! seen you last night. Everyone was
there to give us the glad hand. We
went to bed about nine o'clock last
night and when we got to Minneapolis
we had to get up again and change
cars. This is some car all right. We
didn't have any lights last night and
no bedclothes but pillow and one
blanket, so we all went to bed with
our shoes, overcoats and everything
on, and we slept fine too. This has
been a great trip. We came over the
Milwaukee road as far as st. Paul
and left there over the Rock Island.
The first town that we saw this
morning was Albert Lea. Every
morning they stop the train for about
thirty minutes and give us about
three mile walk. The, first morning
we got off three miles east of Maiden
and walked into town. Everyone was
there to welcome us with plenty of
good things to eat. You should have
seen the tobacco we got along the
way. At Teka, st. Marie and Miles
City we got big send off. l wanted
to get off last night at Minneapolis
and come down to see you but didn't
ask as l knew it wouldn't do any
good. l don't know if you can read
this or not as the car has been rolling
something fierce. This writing paper
was given to us at MontevideO and
the Red Cross has given us some post
cards all along the line. Yes, this
certainly is a great trip but wouldn't
be no place for sick man. Well,
think | had better close or this will
make you sea sick to read. l will
send you a card when / get located.
With love to all. From Archie.
j. 4 j i
Camp Doniphan, Okla, November
IL, 1911. N. Tompkins: After
spending two months at Camp Dodge
there were 155 soldiers transferred
to Camp Doniphan for base hospital
work. The trip took us thirty eight
hours and we stopped at different
towns for coffee and rest At the towns
where we stopped the people were
just grand to us. At Fort Scott, Kan
sas, they marched us around town.
1t is very old and good looking town.
We stayed there about three hours
and they gave us soldiers the privi-
lege to buy fruit, pies, candy, pop,
etc., and we sure did. We arrived at
Fort Sill Thursday morning at five
thirty and they took us over to the
hospital for breakfast. After that we
were assigned to tents and they issued
each one of us cot, nine sleeping
in tent and we have little stove,
the shape of an ice cream cone with
small pipes running out of the top of
the tent. The reason we are at Fort
Sill is because the base hospital at
Camp Doniphan isn't completed and
things aren't quite as nice as at
Camp Dodge. For one thing, the water
supply is very short and it is very
hard to take a bath unless you get a
pail and sponge yourself. The water
isn't so bad but it has queer taste
| like cooked cabbage. 1t comes from
some lake. We expect to move over
to the hospital in about two weeks and
things will be different.
They have an aviation school here
consisting of seventy-two machines
and you can see about six of them fly
| ing over your head. Camp Doniphan
| is about eight miles around in the
shape of a horseshoe and has about
10000 soldiers. The climate is warm
during the day but up to ten o'clock
| in the morning it is quite COOL The
nights are very cool. Toward morn
| ing use two woolen blankets my
overcoat and could use some more If
| had them The soil is of reddish
color and is very dry and hard and
| it has rained only three days since
August 1917. We get very little
storms. They say they have some real
bad sand storms here and 1t gets
down to zero weather feel the change
some, but feel good and eat good.
The boys didn't like this place at
first, but are getting used to it. |
think the reason is that being around
the post hospital and seeing the sick
soldiers and smell of medicine and
| the change of food. We aren't fed
as heavy as at Camp Dodge. We
haven't so far had any entertainments
only what we pull off at our camp,
but later we will Saturday night we
! went to Lawton, town of about
5000 people. 1t is western town
and l laughed some when 1 saw the
different classes of people. The stores