The Dermott news., 1918-01-24
From Lieut.. Crenshaw

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 The following is copied from personal letter received last week by Mrs. $. Burleigh from her brother, Lt j. l.. Crenshaw, who is in the Gas Defense Department of the t. & National Army somewhere in France" It Crenshaw was the first Dermotter to be sent on active service to France and this mes sage direct from home boy who is with the American ExpeditionaryF Forces will certainly be read with much inter est. It gives an interesting and lnti- mate personal glimpse of the brighter side of life lover there.
 So far we have had nothing to do except sleep, eat and try out our French. We have good room at hotel here and as my roommate said the other morning as we were eating breakfast in bed at about l0:30. General Sherman must have been ignorant of such a possibility. No one knows how long We will have to wait here. but as figure that later on We will have plenty of real war. 1t seems foolish not to be as comfortable as We can as long as We can.
 We have seen nearly all there is to see in this town so am getting anxious to move along SD that can get some mail l suppose We will get no mai until we are settled somewhere.
 The eating here is very gool; except for war bread Something like rye breadl everything in ,hat tine Is good There are ,a, of so-eal.,d Pa;isseues here and t4tt are fine places to oag cakes. ehosoaeetaf the hot gariety) and wines The cakes are about the best | ever ate. as is also the hot chocolate Water is rare and expensive so We have been drinking cider. beer and cham pagne. all of which are quite cheap.
 have got to know by sight several Waitresses and 1t Is lots of fun thinking up things to ask them in French. Often French people at the same table are willing to tall, to Us and l find 1t much easier to talk to strangers in French than it would be in English. tstill seems funny to me that people actually use the curious sounds l once learned in college to convey ideas to each other. l often run along with my French quite smoothly for while only to butt into brick wal all of sudden. My room mate got off a good one the other night when he inserted right into the middle of his French ''feefty feefty.' as one says in America! Most of the people here know less English than know French so 1t is a good place to practice. l have learned q lot of French words. but my grammar seems to get worse rather than better. lay aim every day to study some but though have nothing at all to do never seem to fini" time for anything.
 There are lots of Americans here, of course. and here at the officers club one sees n great many of them. haven t met anybody yet that knew before got into the army. have been keeping an eye out for Douglas Wells and Chisa Hauce who hear has a commission in the medical corps
 With Christmas less than week off 1t seems very strange to be SO far from home and native land So far 1t hasn't been az cold as feared 1t would be. ' Yesterday We had some snow and had a great time asking waitress if they often had enough snow here for sleigh ing. From her answer l gathered. No.
 The army still seems to agree with me weighed li3 today which is more than l have weighed since got over the typhoid in 1908.