Thursday, May 9, 2013

Finding That Old Stash of War Letters


Anyone who has been following the progress here at A Family Tapestry knows how old letters call my name. No, actually—warning to digital tailgaters!—I brake for old letters.

There is no describing the breathtaking moment when a family member handed me a stash of old World War II letters home. I was in awe. You may have followed along here as I began posting transcriptions of the notes from Frank Stevens as he made his way through boot camp, then specialized training, then across the Pacific to some serious action in places like Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

So you can imagine how attentive I was when faithful scout and reader, Intense Guy (or, as we call him, Iggy for short) sent me a link to a Yahoo! News article about a stash of war letters.

If genealogy’s thrill of the hunt is still deep in your heart, you absolutely must take a look at this report. Better yet, go beyond the brief recounting at Yahoo! News to the source—the original publication in the Tulsa World—and read the saga of not only one uncovered stash of World War II letters, but of two.

This story within a story lays out the marching orders for anyone with a penchant for poking through old genealogical documents. I couldn’t resist, myself. The Tulsa World’s Michael Overall described how by a chance purchase at an estate sale fifteen years ago, a woman uncovered a stash of nearly two hundred fifty letters from 1940 onward—then, not knowing what to do with them, tucked them back onto a closet shelf.

Until now. For some reason, discovering a newspaper story about another found stash of letters was enough inspiration to try again to find the family of letter writers Eural and Robert Harvill of Creek County, Oklahoma.

Since we’ve tried our hands at this sort of thing so many times—think crowdsourcing the solution to finding descendants of orphan photographs' subjects at Forgotten Old Photos, for instance—you know it is no great challenge for us to locate online records that provide ample clues. While you’d think the name Eural is unusual enough to increase chances of an easy find, it does introduce some challenges for online searching, though, such as when the 1930 census taker for Creek County mistook that “Eural” for “Cural.” And since our Eural was evidently named after his own father, as son, he was called by his middle name, hence recorded as “Dale” in 1940.

Eural and Robert, the two letter-writing Harvill brothers, both have military records readily accessible online—Robert’s enlistment in 1940 indicating that he would be the one responsible for the earlier letters home, as Eural’s age precluded his enlistment until much later.

Knowing how much I yearn to discover such artifacts from my own family history, I so sincerely hope these wartime letters find their way home to a Harvill relative in short order.


Thankfully, there's now a heartwarming update, just in time for Memorial Day weekend festivities: the letters have made their way home to Eural Harvill's now-adult children.

15 comments:

  1. Old letters are wonderful! Wish I had more.

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  2. I hope the letters find a relative too! And I hope they post them all so the rest of us can read them!

    I know the rush of excitement I felt when I uncovered my Great uncle Franklin's diaries and the double jolt of awe I felt when I read how he was at the radio and received reports of the S.O.S. from the Titanic and later the list of survivors!

    As Agent Mulder would say if he was a genealogist, "The (family) story is out there!"

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    1. I remember when you posted about that discovery, Iggy. And you can almost feel yourself in your ancestor's shoes, re-living that moment as you contemplate your discovery. Powerful stuff.

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  3. http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/05/looking-for-family-for-world-war-ii.html

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    1. I imagine there are lots of people now pursuing that mystery. I wonder how many hits there would be for a Google Alert on the term "Eural Harvill." Think I'll just go do that little thing, myself. I'd love to know the rest of the story!

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    2. Eaton has made significant progress tracking down the Harvill family with the help of many local Drumright, Okla., residents, who have become fascinated with the hidden history lesson these letters contain.

      “I think we’re getting close,” said Eaton. “I’ve heard from a distant relative of the people involved. I want to say a fourth cousin, and I’ve enlisted him to help. I think he’s identified a possible son and maybe even a sister. I know how important it is to family members to get these.”

      http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/05/search-for-heirs-to-250-wwii-letters-found-in-hatbox/

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    3. It's really interesting how this story has just exploded! While some of the interest may be owing to those history buffs of WWII memorabilia, and some from those taken with the more recent ephemera craze ("Permanent Record" also picked up the story and blogged it), I think part of it is owing to our inherent nature to want to connect the artifacts of family with those living, breathing remnants still in touch with that same family: the roots and branches of genealogy.

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    4. Thankfully, those letters have just been reunited with family members this Memorial Day weekend--a fitting time for the transfer to be made!

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  4. This motivates me to continue my journals, for one day my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will feel the same thrill I feel when I read an old letter or book with notes in them from dear relatives from long ago. :-)

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    1. Tena, thanks for stopping by! And yes, powerful point! We are all one link in a long chain of heritage that is being passed on to future generations. Someday, someone will be looking back at us!

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  5. Very good of you to post this! I hope that there are still Harvill relatives out there, and that they are interested in these letters. (Who could not be? We ask ourselves)

    More than that, I hope that after they read the letters or transcribe them and preserve the originals (acid-free folders!) they will share them with an good archive somewhere, as at ACPL. Letters like these are where genealogy meets history, I think. In fact, the personal histories of every human being all add up to historical forces.

    I'm impressed with the talent of the genealogical community in finding a home for orphan photos and orphan letters.

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    1. Mariann, I believe some of what you mentioned will actually happen. Doug Eaton, the man helping with the search, has already written a book about preserving other World War II letters--that's how the current owner of these letters connected with him and secured his assistance in the current search. Since this is becoming a nationally-recognized story-within-a-story, I'm sure he'll have enough material to write a sequel.

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  6. I have boxes full of them at the museum..I am scared to look at them..mostly from one family I think:(

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    1. Wish the museum could get a grant to scan and transcribe all those letters. Collectively, those WWII letters are a national treasure. For those letters which have been saved for so long, I hate to see them just fade into oblivion!

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