47. Old Letters in a Shoebox

 

 

Yup, it was actually a shoebox of old letters that my dear Aunt Gertie passed to me during a short summer visit.  It took me some time to open the box and review the contents but when I did, I found some 60 or so letters from the WWI era.  Wow!

 

Most of the letters were written by my grandfather, Thomas McCracken Gilmore, to his wife Agnes.  Thomas, at the time, is in the trenches of Northern France and Belgium with a machine gun battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, fighting the Germans.  Two of the letters were outlined in black.  These letters carried the sad news of the death of Thomas’s mother and his youngest brother back in Ireland while he was at war. 

 

Agnes Gilmore, my grandmother, is back in northern Saskatchewan, on a somewhat primitive homestead, raising their four small children aged 8, 6, 3 and 6 months.  

 

Thomas fights in the famous battles of Vimy Ridge and Paschendaele, is gassed three times and returns to Canada at the end of the war pretty much an invalid.  Sadly, the returning soldiers brought with them the dreaded "Swine Flu” and Agnes dies within weeks of his return.  

 

I only found one letter from Agnes to Thomas.  

 

Eventually, I transcribed each of these letters, adding notes to explain who referenced individuals were, the context, and explanations of any terminology (military or otherwise).  I also included a timeline of the key events occurring during the war.  The resulting document of some hundreds of pages became a family treasure shared amongst the many descendants.  

 

Ron Gilmore

 

Email:            rvg3@me.com

Website:        https://www.rgenealogy.ca

Video:            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4K-P5LMSRQ&list=PLV5aseONy8UoVZDnQ0Z6ZTIUWmaQ0yGJd&index=2