Edwin Conroy Letters

Edwin Conroy Letters

WWI Correspondence

Edwin Conroy was a private in the American Expeditionary Force in France during the First World War. The Ben Byrnes collection of Edwin Conroy WWI Correspondence is a collection of mostly letters, with a few postcards, sent from Private Conroy while in active service during the war. The letters were written to varying members of his family, in particular his mother, who remained in New York City while he was overseas in the war. The image above is a scan of the first page of the letter adressed to his mother and sister on the 18th of July, 1918. It is handwritten in pencil, on the YMCA stationary that would have been provided to him. Interestingly, several lines have been erased with the words "erased by censor" written over them. Instances such as this were fairly common in the letters, which serves as proof that every outgoing letter was read and reviewed before being sent home to America.
The collection contains letters dating mostly from July to December, 1918. Private Conroy wrote many of the letters on the front, in the trenches. It becomes clear throughout these letters just how important receiving mail was to the soldiers during the war. Conroy writes that receiving a letter was "just like a beam of sunshine all the way from the States to a country full of clouds of war.” After several months at the front he was gassed and spent the end of the war in a hospital, which is also described in the letters. In these letters to his family he attempts to remain positive and optimistic, although the horrors of war do begin to show through in the later letters.

Edwin Conroy

McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Tulsa. 2933 E. 6th St. Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-3123

July 20th, 1918

Ben Byrnes

English

2010.020.1.4

Handwritten Letter