Connecticut western news., 1919-07-03
SHARON VALLEY

Mrs. Lena Durfee and daughter of Kent spent few days with Mrs. F. M. Platt.
 Carrie Warehouse of Elizabeth, N. J. will spend the month of July at her home here. a-..
 Miss Marie Craig of New York spent the weekend at Mrs. Adelbert Middlebrook's. .. -z=
 Miss Jessie Warehouse has gone to Elizabeth, N. J. to act as bridesmaid at the wedding of a friend. She will be absent from home about a month
 Miss Gladys Brazee of this place was one of the graduates in Sharon High last Thursday evening held in Sharon Casino.
 Miss Augusta Colligan and Miss Gertrude Walsh, teachers of Sharon Center School have returned home for their summer vacation. We un- derstand Miss Colligan will return again in the Fall. Glad to see her back again. .a
 Mrs. John Juckett and Mrs. Walter Knibloe of Amenia Union called on Mrs. F. M. Platt last Tuesday.
 Mrs. James Vosburgh is visiting friends and. relatives at Seymour.
 The following letter from Paul Kochauski will be of interest to our readers in this vicinity:
 Vierzoh (Cher) France,
 June End, 1919. Dear Sister Augusta:
 | am not going to say very much in this letter as I think that I will be able to tell you great deal of the same stuff in couple or three weeks from now as it looks as if we are to leave this place on or about the Il of this month, the French are taking over the railroads that were former ly operated by the Americans, so we may have chance to see the U. s. first, and it suits me to see it last,as long as there is U. s. A little girl sent me some German souvenirs from Alsace and I am going to send them home in day or two so you might be on the lookout for them.
 What is Charlie going to do around Sharon Valley for the summer when there are a lot of other good jobs looking for good men is more than can see.
 As I have little time to spare I'll finish this letter and have it over with, have been putting it off for about two days, the company clerk has left on leave to visit Paris and am compelled to do little of his xunrk fol 11-n~ 4< T little as that kind of work is alto gether out of my line and it is pretty slow moving. ....=.s
 Have just finished my weekly wash ing so that feel much better than l did an hour ago, it is one of the worst things of the army, that you have to do your own washing unless you want to pay some French woman more than the clothes are worth. Last Friday I came back from a furlough to Chateau Thierry, Reims and Verdun, the devastated part of France. It sure was worth while, everything you see is blown to pieces there is hardly a house standing fit to live in.
 Reims was city of 120,000 popu- lation before the war, now only 17,000 of it's inhabitants are living there at the present time so you can imagine what place it must be, I have piece of glass of the famous Reims Cathedral for a keepsake They ought to go into Germany and blow Berlin to hell just for that one piece of deviltry alone. a.s
 have seen many beautiful build ings since have been in France but some that would equal this one. It took no less than 300 years to build it, so you can guess what wonder ful thing it must have been, it sure is pity to see it at the present time, nothing but mass of ruins.
 l talked with woman while l, was there and she tells me that she never left the place during the four years that the war lasted and the lombard ing of the city, can you imagine what a plucky person she must be. I also had talk with a Frenchman and he told me that while they were bom- barding the Cathedral they were printing their daily newspaper just across the street from it.
 Everything one sees is all blown to bits. Great hotels, theatres and churches. Nothing to indicate that there ever was a peaceful city in place of the tumbled down heaps of rubbish that one sees.
 We hiked out to the Hindenberg Line about 6 miles out of the city and there people are beginning to put up little houses of sun-baked brick that they manufacture themselves. While there we were talking to an old lFrenchman and his little boy about l1O years old who was helping him to