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2 of 5
First Lieutenant
Lucille Backemeyer wrote this letter to her Lincoln friends Doris and
Marv Weber, who were then stationed in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. In her
cover note to us, Doris says, "Lucy was one of two dieticians with
the 36th General hospital in the army medical corps, attached to the
Fifth Army. At the time she was on temporary duty in Naples. My husband,
Lt. Marvin C. Weber, shipped out shortly after the letter was received.
He was with General Patton's Third Army. He made it through the bloody
Battle of the Bulge, but was killed in Germany, March 3, 1945, weeks
before the end of the war in Europe. We were long-time friends of Lucille's.
We attended the same church and all went to school in Murdock, Nebraska.
Lucille is now a resident of Fallbrook, California.
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July
20th, 1944
Dear
Marv and Dory:
You
write the "newsiest" letters I get — wish there were more
of them. My own answers to my mail always sound so dull to me I marvel
that any of my friends bother to answer.
Your
husband's in a fine division now. Tell him to be proud of it — and if
the 20th goes through as much, and as well as some of the
earlier divisions of the same type that I have known here in Italy,
they have a high record to shoot at.
Speaking
of hovels and homes, since I have been in the army I have lived in
regulation army barracks; (one and two story types); in pyramidal
tents (with and without floors) — in and out of mud; in a former insane
hospital (part of the patients still there); a French villa with a
personal maid; Italian prisoner barracks (with rats); prefabricated
houses; a sulfur bath resort; and a bombed-out building with no roof — no
beds — no blankets — just the floor and stars (take it back, no stars,
that was in the rainy season). My recent acquisition is a transient
hotel that I'm helping run. We have either private rooms (only ten
to a room) or double rooms (with 18 people sharing the floor space).
The outstanding feature about our hotel is that we have bigger and
more fleas than anyplace in the city, and that our location
is in the center of the most flourishing red-light district!
I
have easy access to a large outdoor market, so typical of Italy. I
buy a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables for the hotel mess, and seem,
as a general rule, to keep the little chicks fairly happy.
It's
11 o'clock and my bedtime is past due. Long, hard day tomorrow. So
good nite.
Love,
Lucy
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