The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1918-06-28
PARIS BOY WRITES AN INTER
ESTING LETTER FROM FRANCE


Jos. j. Grosche and brothers,
Henry and Will Grosche. of this city,
have received a letter from their
brother, Mr.. Leo. Grosche, who is in
France as member of the American
Evolutionary Force. For the first
time, Mr.. Grosche states, they are al
lowed to tell where they are station
ed. Mr.. Grosche's letter is one of
great interest, and is published in
full below:
'"Thiviers. France, June 8.
Dear Brothers:
1T is now permissible for men be-
hind the lines to give their location,
and to send home postal views and
have various other privileges in the
way of letter-writing, etc. So hope
that hereafter / will be able to write
more interesting letters.
The above place is pronounced
Te-ve-ay, and is in the province Of
Dordogne. do not know if you will
be able to mind Thiviers on an Amer
lean map. but 1T is located about
ninety miles northeast of Bordeaux,
or else find PeuSieux and look north
east of there. Before describing our
present location I'll tell you about my
previous experience in France.
After landing we were in a rest
camp near (deleted.) was only in
the latter place once. A bunch of
us, in, charge of an officer, tramped
there and back one afternoon. About
ell we did was to walk through the
business section, and we did not get
to see anything of much conse-
Quence. Anyway 1 can say 1 have
been in Bordeaux. After leaving
Camp No-Rest, as we have nicknamed
it, we travelled by train to Wallet.
This place is pronounced just as it is
spelled, and is in the province of
Loire Infirieure, and is about fifteen
miles southeast of Nantes. We were
located at Wallet for about two
months building a telegraph line
(that is all we are doing at our pres
ent location.) Our mess hall was in
an old theatre, and our barracks were
in three different buildings, scatter
ed throughout the town. We were
comfortably housed, though. Wallet
is a great wine center, and practical
ly all of the ground under cultiva-
ton is in vineyards. While there
formed an erroneous opinion that the
people of France were putting more
attention to wine than the growing
of foodstuffs, but it is altogether diff
ferent in this section. Since leaving
Wallet we have seen very few grape
vines. Before the war this was evil
IDENTIFY a very lively place. You
could hardly go two doors without
stepping into a wineroom (cafe is the
principal name for them here), and
1 don't suppose there was home but
what had its private wine cellar.
Well, that's enough about Wallet.
Now, I'll tell you about the most
interesting part of my trip since
leaving the States excepting some
occurrences on our sea trip, and
that was a two-hundred mile motor
truck trip from Wallet to Thiviers.
We had quite train of trucks, off,
GERS cars, motorcycles and road
lice (trucks.) / was in one of the
latter with a kitchen force, and We
would run ahead of the trail, get
about three hours start on 1t, set up
our stoves and have mess ready when
the train got to camp. We were on
the run from last Monday morning
until Wednesday noon. We camped in
towns on the two nights out on our
trip. Some of the fellows set up
their pup tents and some slept on
the trucks and on the ground. The
cook and / rolled up in our blankets
on the ground and had the big blue
sky for our tent. In my opinion,
the nights were too beautiful to do
otherwise. The last night We camped
at Angouleme (the spelling of the
places / am giving you may be diff
erent on the American maps.) 1t
was quite a large place, and beauti-
full, to say the least 1t is located
ON a hill and overlooks an immense
valley. The most beautiful part OF
our trip, though, was after leaving
Angouleme am a poor hand at
describing scenery, but just want to
say that, though have not seen all
of the United States, I've yet to see
the scenic part of it that can compare
with the country we've passed
through in the last week.
Another interesting sight was
some masonry work in the way of big
stone arched railway bridges. One
thing the French have is good roads.
We have found almost perfect high
ways everywhere. i forgot to say
that I made a great many motor
truck trips to Nantes, and 1T is Ger
an interesting city. Wen,
anyway, we arrived in Thiviers with
enough dirt and dust on us to keep us
busy washing ever since, and / still
have some traces of it. Thiviers is
town of about 1--WE thousand. We are
all in barracks in one building, and
have our mess hall in another build
ing. I'm still in the kitchen, had an
to get out of 1T this
week. but believe I'll stick it out un-
till we begin railroading, which / be-
lieve will be in a couple of months.
While I'm sitting here writing 1 can
see a big locomotive in the yards just
across the road. with the good old
letters, u. S. A. painted on the tender.
and let me tell you folks, it looks
mighty good to me. United States
railway equipment is a common sight
here. You people would have to be
in France to realize to what extent
TIncie Sam is going into this war.