Kenneth Spencer Research Library

In honor of the centennial of World War I, we’re going to follow the experiences of one American soldier: nineteen-year-old Forrest W. Bassett, whose letters are held in Spencer’s Kansas Collection. Each Monday we’ll post a new entry, which will feature selected letters from Forrest to thirteen-year-old Ava Marie Shaw from that following week, one hundred years after he wrote them.

Forrest W. Bassett was born in Beloit, Wisconsin, on December 21, 1897 to Daniel F. and Ida V. Bassett. On July 20, 1917 he was sworn into military service at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri. Soon after, he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for training as a radio operator in Company A of the U. S. Signal Corps’ 6th Field Battalion.

Ava Marie Shaw was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 12, 1903 to Robert and Esther Shaw. Both of Marie’s parents – and her three older siblings – were born in Wisconsin. By 1910 the family was living in Woodstock, Illinois, northwest of Chicago. By 1917 they were in Beloit.

Frequently mentioned in the letters are Forrest’s older half-sister Blanche Treadway (born 1883), who had married Arthur Poquette in 1904, and Marie’s older sister Ethel (born 1896).

Highlights from this week’s letters include Forrest’s frozen ear (“this morning I froze the top of my left ear on my way to school”) and a dispute during guard duty (“[the Officer of the Day] criticised me for not turning out the guard when he came in sight…I was on duty from 10 to 12 P.M. and believe me I halted everyone strictly according to regulations”).

Jan 30, 1918

Dear Marie,

No letter came Monday nor Tuesday but three came today which made it all “fine” once more. You didn’t tell me exactly what an Earth Trodder is, so I am not justified in condemning the idea, however it doesn’t “listen” very good to me. I would be glad to get a fruit cake from you, so you better get Blanche to show you how to make one. I would eat it all myself, too – you see if the whole First Section were tied up with a “tummy-ache,” Co. “A” would be very seriously crippled.

Marie, don’t ever think for a minute that I will get tired of receiving your letters. I am at least as glad to get letters from you as you are to hear from me. But at the same time I think it would be better to write every other day as lots of times I get two letters on one day and none the preceding day.

Now please, little sweetheart, don’t think that I am tiring of you in the least.

We rode all afternoon yesterday. As soon as we hit the hills we left the main road and hit for the tall timber. You should have heard the hooting and yelling when we got in the woods. There is only about six inches of snow on the ground and the ground underneath is hard and slippery so we could not trot very much. Even at that we had a lot of fun. Our new first sergeant is a fine fellow. The other one was promoted and Sg’t. Ryan took his place. Sg’t. Ryan is the one that got kicked just below the eye by the same horse that tickled me on the jaw. I guess he will wear that scar all his life.

The Co. had a big test in semaphore yesterday. We are supposed to be able to send and receive five to eight words a minute in wig-wag and ten to fifteen words a minute in semaphore. The words are supposed to average five letters each. It is easy to read wig-wag as it is impossible to transmit very fast with a large flag. I didn’t take the test as I was down to the class at the Army Service School. During the wig-wag class period in the afternoon, I sent wig-wag at the rate of eleven words per minute for a few minutes, and when I quit I had a blister on the side of my hand. Sending semaphore is not so much work, but it takes lots of practice and a quick eye to get fifteen (that is 75 letters) a minute. This is about as fast as the average person writes. I can receive about twelve words and send about fifteen words per minute. Sometimes we semaphore French words and one is out of luck if he misses a single letter.

This morning I froze the top of my left ear on my way to school. It was hard and stiff so I kept it in the snow until it got soft then I turned the cold water facet on it. It is swollen up and is pretty blue and tender, but I guess it will be O.K. in a few days.

Tonight, Stock and I hiked to town – an auto delivery took us most of the way.

Tomorrow is muster day, so we will have Battalion inspection, which means that yours truly must scrub his leggins before he hits that little straw bunk.

Stock says “That’s enough Bassett, that’s enough” and I guess he is right, don’t you think so?

With love,
Forrest.

I know this writing is fierce but I had to hurry.

Click images to enlarge.

Feb. 3, 1918

Dear Marie,

Glad to hear you liked the pictures. I guess we say our final “Goodbye” to our horses this week. Yesterday we saw our motor radio set. It is for the main station and is set up on a “White” motor truck. The motor class I was in was discontinued at the end of the month. (Jan.)

Stock leaves for Urbania, Ill. tomorrow or Tuesday. He will attend the “ground school” and then go to some aviation field to learn to fly, later. I wish I were going to Urbana as it is only about 160 miles from Beloit. Stock’s final success in getting his transfer has stirred up quite a spirit of unrest among some of the more ambitious men in the Co. Serg’ts Ryan, Carr, and Ward are going to try for a transfer but I doubt if they can “put it over” in the way that Stock did. Maybe Stock will go to Beloit some time before he leaves Urbana.

Friday night and Sat. we were on guard again. The “Officer of the Day” was a pretty strict one and about fifteen minutes after “retreat” was blown he came around to look us over. I was on duty at the Guard House (Post No 1.) and he criticised me for not turning out the guard when he came in sight. Well it happened that I was right because the thirteenth special order, applying to Post # No 1, starts out “Between Reveille and Retreat, turn out the guard for —- etc.”, but it got my goat anyway. The O.D. came around again on an inspection tour and Cpl. Abrams told me to be very sure to challenge all persons and to advance no one without calling the Corporal of the Guard. I was on duty from 10 to 12 P.M. and believe me I halted everyone strictly according to regulations. At midnight I was relieved and went to bed. Just as I was dozing off I heard Corporal Clayton make a remark about “Bassett waking him up several times by calling the Cpl. of the Guard to advance men coming to the guardhouse. Finally he said, “He’s a d-d good kid, but bullheaded as H—l.” I thought that was about “nuff ced” so I cut loose with a few remarks on the subject that cleared the atmosphere considerably. I knew he was pretty unpopular with almost every man in the Co. so I didn’t leave very much unsaid. It’s a gay life. I have only been to one “movie” since Thanksgiving. I saw one of the “Bab’s Diary” pictures last summer. It was the one where her mother wouldn’t let her have her new party dress made with a low neck. She scared her folks into thinking she was going to run away and marry, and finally got her dress. It sure was a good story, was it the one you saw? Well I must quit for tonight. Would you like to learn the radio telegraph code and the Semaphore method of signaling?

With love,
Forrest.

The radio code is the same one we used to use with the buzzer in my desk.

Meredith Huff
Public Services

Emma Piazza
Public Services Student Assistant

In honor of the centennial of World War I, we’re going to follow the experiences of one American soldier: nineteen-year-old Forrest W. Bassett, whose letters are held in Spencer’s Kansas Collection. Each Monday we’ll post a new entry, which will feature selected letters from Forrest to thirteen-year-old Ava Marie Shaw from that following week, one hundred years after he wrote them.

Forrest W. Bassett was born in Beloit, Wisconsin, on December 21, 1897 to Daniel F. and Ida V. Bassett. On July 20, 1917 he was sworn into military service at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri. Soon after, he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for training as a radio operator in Company A of the U. S. Signal Corps’ 6th Field Battalion.

Ava Marie Shaw was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 12, 1903 to Robert and Esther Shaw. Both of Marie’s parents – and her three older siblings – were born in Wisconsin. By 1910 the family was living in Woodstock, Illinois, northwest of Chicago. By 1917 they were in Beloit.

Frequently mentioned in the letters are Forrest’s older half-sister Blanche Treadway (born 1883), who had married Arthur Poquette in 1904, and Marie’s older sister Ethel (born 1896).

Highlights from this week’s letter include horseback riding (“nearly three weeks of loafing around in the corral made them feel pretty funny”) and guard duty (“All I did Wednesday after 8:30 A:M was to take one of the prisoners from the guardhouse to his Company mess house for dinner. This fellow had a couple pretty serious charges against him”). This week’s letters also include a field message from Forrest (writing as “Gen. Nuisance”) to his sister Blanche, thanking her for the “war munitions.”

Click images to enlarge.

Jan. 27, 1918.

Dear Marie,

Stock has gone to K. City so I came down to the Leav. “Y” to write. I sure was glad to get your letter. Yesterday I tried to bribe the C’p’l in charge of quarters to bring a letter from Beloit with the mail, but even a big slice of Blanche’s cake was not enough.

I am still going to the motor class at the Service School. Have you a picture of the latter?

Tuesday afternoon we took the horses out for exercise. Nearly three weeks of loafing around in the corral made them feel pretty funny. We had quite an exciting time rounding up our own horses. I got “Ten” out before the stampede but had a gay time “snagging” a mule to lead. “Ten” had fattened a little since I saw him last, and when I saddled him, had to let out the cincha (which is the strap around the belly) about two inches more than usual. I am showing the effects of Army starvation in the same way. The mule I caught was a new one but he performed alright except that he kept a good stiff pull on the rope most of the time. Neither the Captain nor the Lietenants were with us and when we got into the woods we kicked a few slats loose. We hooted and yelled like a bunch of kids on the last day of school. The horses and mules had the same spirit and about every two minutes one would get loose (accidently on purpose on the part of the rider) and we would have some more fun catching them. Ten sure is one wise horse and is “on” to everything going, whether it’s heading off loose mules or jumping up a slippery hill. Gee, but you can’t imagine what great fun it is to ride a good, easily guided horse. When I think of the good times we used to have canoeing, and in the water, and shooting, it makes me wish we could be together on horses. We have fine saddles and the Company looks great mounted, every man in same uniform and every one in line with his “lead” horse to the right of the horse he is riding. We rode again Thursday but we didn’t have much fun as it was too slippery to let the horses go faster than a walk.

Tuesday night and Wednesday the Co. A-6 went on guard. I had it pretty soft, as I only had 6:30-8:30 P:M 12:30-2:30 A:M and from 6:30-8:30 A:M on actual guard duty. The night was not very cold and was clear and moonlight. All I did Wednesday after 8:30 A:M was to take one of the prisoners from the guardhouse to his Company mess house for dinner. This fellow had a couple pretty serious charges against him. One was impersonating an officer and the other was being absent without leave. He belonged to the same Co. that the other Bassett is in. The latter is in the same class with me at the Service School. His home was in Rockford, Ill. and he worked for awhile as telegraph operator at the N.W. R.R. depot in Beloit. When he enlisted he was in San Francisco. This makes me think about addressing my letters. It is uneccessary to write out my middle name. (but always my first)

Here is the address:

Forrest W. Bassett
Co. A-6th Fld. B’n. Signal Corps
Ft. Leavenworth, Kans.

Write Signal Corps in full as you have been doing but abbreviate the Fld. B’n.

Well I am in hopes that there will be a letter from A.M.S. [Ava Marie Shaw] on my bunk when I come in tomorrow noon. Please.

With love,
Forrest.

Click image to enlarge.

Meredith Huff
Public Services

Emma Piazza
Public Services Student Assistant

One of my first projects in the African American Experience Collections was to help the Field Archivist/Curator, Deborah Dandridge, put together an exhibit titled Education: The Mightiest Weapon. Many of the items that we used came from the Sumner High School Collection, and it didn’t take long for me to notice how accomplished the graduates of that school were. As coincidence would have it, one of my relatives, Delano Lewis, is a Sumner High graduate. Like many of Sumner’s graduates, he went on to accomplish great things like working as an attorney in the U.S. Justice Department, becoming Associate Director for the Peace Corps in Nigeria and Uganda, and being appointed as the United States Ambassador to South Africa.

Delano Eugene Lewis was born in November of 1938 in Arkansas City, Kansas. His family later moved to Kansas City, Kansas, where he attended Sumner High School, graduating in 1956.

Photograph in the 1956 Sumnerian yearbook showing
Delano Lewis (center) as a Drum Major at Sumner High School.
Call Number: RH Ser D1286. Click image to enlarge.

Sumnerian yearbook photograph of Delano Lewis,
President of the Junior Class of
Sumner High School, 1955.
Call Number: RH Ser D1286. Click image to enlarge.

Lewis graduated from the University of Kansas in 1960 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History. In 1963, he received his Doctorate of Jurisprudence from Washburn University School of Law, after which he went to Washington, D.C., to work as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1967 Lewis served as the Peace Corps’ Country Director in Uganda. After leaving Uganda, he worked as a Legal Assistant for Senator Edward Brooke (R-Mass.), the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate since Reconstruction.

Delano Lewis (center) with Senator Edward Brooke (left) and
Vice President Walter Mondale (right), undated photograph.
Delano Lewis Papers. Call Number: RH MS-P 1075.
Click image to enlarge.

While he held esteemed positions in service of the U.S. government, Lewis also had an impressive corporate career. He served as the Public Affairs Manager for the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company in 1973, and in 1990 he became the CEO. In 1993, Lewis was the first African American become the President and CEO of National Public Radio. Then from 1999 to 2001, Lewis was appointed to be the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa.

Delano Lewis (center) with Vice President Al Gore (left), 1997.
Delano Lewis Papers. Call Number: RH MS-P 1075. Click image to enlarge.

Initially proposed and funded by Michael Shinn (B.S., Aerospace Engineering, 1966), the KU Black Alumni’s African American Leaders and Innovators project recognized Mr. Lewis in 2007.

Arielle Swopes
Spencer Research Library Student Assistant
African American Experience Collections

Deborah Dandridge
Field Archivist and Curator
African American Experience Collections

In honor of the centennial of World War I, we’re going to follow the experiences of one American soldier: nineteen-year-old Forrest W. Bassett, whose letters are held in Spencer’s Kansas Collection. Each Monday we’ll post a new entry, which will feature selected letters from Forrest to thirteen-year-old Ava Marie Shaw from that following week, one hundred years after he wrote them.

Forrest W. Bassett was born in Beloit, Wisconsin, on December 21, 1897 to Daniel F. and Ida V. Bassett. On July 20, 1917 he was sworn into military service at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri. Soon after, he was transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, for training as a radio operator in Company A of the U. S. Signal Corps’ 6th Field Battalion.

Ava Marie Shaw was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 12, 1903 to Robert and Esther Shaw. Both of Marie’s parents – and her three older siblings – were born in Wisconsin. By 1910 the family was living in Woodstock, Illinois, northwest of Chicago. By 1917 they were in Beloit.

Frequently mentioned in the letters are Forrest’s older half-sister Blanche Treadway (born 1883), who had married Arthur Poquette in 1904, and Marie’s older sister Ethel (born 1896).

Highlights from this week’s letters include new equipment, transfer to a new unit, and typhoid inoculations.

Click images to enlarge.

Jan. 20, 1918

Dear Marie,

I am mighty sorry I haven’t written to you oftener. Please don’t think that I am not thinking of you. I am surely going to write you a long “newsy” letter Monday or Wednesday and try to make up. Now, little Girlie please forgive me this once more will you?

With love,
Forrest.

Click images to enlarge.

Jan 21, 1918.

Dear Marie,

I am sorry that you are not feeling well. What is wrong with Mother? I want you to keep the sweater so of course you may alter it as you like. There are no negatives in my desk except the ones that I took with Roy’s camera. Did you get the picture of the Cantonment that I sent? The little signet ring you gave me shows very plainly in that picture of you picking cherries by the porch. Do you remember when we took that picture on July 4th? The ring is quite distinct in that picture of you in the canoe with the duck. Have you got these two pictures? It doesn’t look as if we will take any more next summer. We have our pistol belts now and all our equipment and clothes has been stamped A6F.BN.S.C. We were all measured for shoes a short time ago. I put on a 9D shoe the first time, picked up the dumb-bell and stood on one foot while the lietenent felt of the shoe to see how it fit. He said it was too small so I had to take a 9 ½ C. It looks as if we are going to do some footwork alright. We are no longer mounted. Never again will the bugle blow “Prepare to Mount” for Co. A-6. We expect to have motor equipment before we leave U.S. Each morning I attend a motor class for two hours at the War College. There are six others from A-6 in the same class. The work is quite interesting.

I have been transferred to the First Section. This section does more actual field work than the 5th section, which moves about very little in real service. The section-chief, Sergeant Baber, is the telegraph instructor of the Company. He sure is a fine fellow and is some operator alright. Corporal Abrahms, with whom rode as far as Chi., Thanksgiving, is also in this section. The “First” is probably the leading section in the Company and I sure am glad to get in it.

I had to take my three triple-typhoid innoculations all over again as the old record was lost at the hospital. This differs from a vaccination as the serum is injected with a hypodermic needle. I am not going to argue vaccination at long range but I know that no M.D. will ever get a shot at me after I get back in civilian life.

Well the Company goes on guard again tomorrow night so I think I will hit the straw early tonight.

With love,
Forrest.

Meredith Huff
Public Services

Emma Piazza
Public Services Student Assistant

Victory Mail, commonly called V-Mail, was a process developed in 1942 to more efficiently transport the immense amount of correspondence being generated between military personnel and their families during World War II. The system was a cooperated effort between the U.S. Postal Service and the military, intended to preserve precious cargo space for essential military personnel, equipment, and supplies by reducing the volume and weight of the mail.

Blank v-mail sheets and envelope.
Personal collection of Kathy Lafferty. Click images to enlarge.

A V-Mail letter started out as a single sheet of pre-printed stationery that served as both letter and envelope. The use of V-Mail was voluntary for both military personnel and those on the home front, but its use was encouraged by all branches of the U.S. military as a way to support the war effort. Correspondents were instructed to write only within the space provided, using dark ink or a heavy pencil, then to fold and seal the paper along the lines indicated, forming an envelope. V-Mail was mailed along with normal U.S. mail. Post office staff separated out the V-Mail and sent it to V-Mail stations for filming, using equipment provided by Eastman Kodak. In the U.S., these stations were located in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, while a network of V-Mail stations throughout Europe and the Pacific handled V-Mail written by those serving overseas. Letters written by military personnel were censored for classified intelligence before filming. Once filmed, reels of microfilm were created, each capable of holding approximately 1,700 letters. The reels of microfilm were then mailed. Once the microfilm reached a V-Mail station, it was developed, and each four-by-five inch printed letter was folded and placed into a window envelope for mailing to the recipient. Members of the military who were serving overseas could mail V-Mail, as well as all other mail, for free under an Act of Congress in March 1942.

Shown here are examples of V-Mail from a few of the manuscript collections housed in Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

V-Mail letter from Orin Roland Bales to his mother,
June 26, 1945. Bales Family Papers.
Call Number: RH MS 952. Click image to enlarge.

Orin Roland Bales (1919-2010) was born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia (1940) and a master’s degree from the University of Kansas (1942). From 1942 to 1945 he served in the U.S. Army Air Forces‘ 63rd Air Service Group, stationed primarily in the Philippines, where Luzon is the largest island. After the war he owned businesses in Emporia, Kansas, and Fairfield Bay, Arkansas.

V-Mail letter from John Avery Bond to his parents,
December 31, 1943. Papers of John A. Bond.
Call Number: RH MS 1272. Click image to enlarge.

John Avery Bond (1919-2016) was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1942 to 1946, serving in the Pacific, French New Caledonia, New Zealand, Guadalcanal, and Bougainville. At Bougainville, Bond monitored radar for information about Japanese position changes and potential attacks. Back in the United States, he taught electronics to Navy sailors and worked at the U.S. Marine Corps Rehabilitation Office, advising discharged Marines of their rights and opportunities as veterans. After the war he graduated from the University of Chicago with a masters degree in social science, and then earned his Ph.D. in political science. Dr. Bond taught at Hillsdale College, the University of Minnesota, the University of Southern Illinois, North Dakota State University, and the University of Southern Colorado.

V-Mail letter from Bill F. Mayer to his parents,
April 11, 1945. Bill Mayer Correspondence.
Call Number: RH MS 1386. Click image to enlarge.

Bill F. Mayer (1925-2014) was born in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1925. After graduating from Wyandotte High School in 1943, he served in the Army Air Forces as a navigator on B-24 bombers during World War II, flying missions over the European Theater of Operations. After his Army service, he earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas. He worked at the Lawrence Journal World newspaper for sixty years.

V-Mail letter from Charles S. Scott to his father, March 16, 1944.
Charles S. Scott Papers. Call Number: RH MS 1145. Click image to enlarge.

Charles S. Scott, Sr. (1921-1989) was born in Topeka, Kansas. During World War II, he served with the United States Army’s 2nd Calvary Division and the Red Ball Express Transportation Unit. Following the war, he earned a law degree from Washburn University in 1948 and his Juris Doctorate in 1970. In 1954, Scott was one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which ended legal segregation in public schools.

V-Mail letter from Robert Ernest Willman to his parents,
October 4, 1944. Robert Ernest Willman World War II Letters.
Call Number: RH MS 946. Click image to enlarge.

Robert Ernest Willman (1923-1978) was born in Lawrence, Kansas. He was inducted into the Army in 1943 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with the rank of Private. He was sent overseas in August 1944, serving in France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Germany with Company C of the First Division’s First Battalion, 26th Infantry. Willman was wounded in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest near Aachen, Germany, and was awarded the Purple Heart. He returned to active duty in May 1945 and served with American occupation forces at Fürth, Germany, guarding prisoners of war who had served in Hitler’s SS forces. In February 1946 Willman suffered injuries in a jeep accident and was hospitalized at Nürnberg, Germany, returning to the U.S. in May 1946 for hospitalization and recuperation.

V-Mail letter from Leo William Zahner, Jr. to his parents,
June 25, 1944. Leo Zahner, Jr. World War II Letters.
Call Number: RH MS 1079. Click image to enlarge.

Leo William Zahner, Jr. (1925-2007) was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He joined the Navy in 1943, receiving training in the Navy’s metalsmith school. He shipped overseas in 1944, serving on a tank landing ship in combat zones in New Guinea and the Philippines. After the war, Leo joined his father in the family business, the Zahner Sheet Metal Company. Under Leo Jr.’s influence, the company applied its metal work to architecture, earning awards and a global reputation for innovative and visually striking building design. In 1989, Leo was awarded the National Sheet Metal Contractor of the Year. In 2000, he received the National AFL-CIO Labor – Management Award.

Kathy Lafferty
Public Services