Documents

Okay Ed - I posted these for you! The top is Paul W. Bien's birth certificate - you'll notice it's missing a name. But the names of his parents and the dates work out to be him. The second is his father - which is either W. Ernest Bien (for William) or Ernest William Bien. He was called Willie. But you'll notice on his death certificate there isn't even a middle initial. So I don't know. And then the last document is Paul W. Bien's honorable discharge paper.

Are we Scottish?

So I really wasn't going to sit down in the office and work on this today.

But I came into the office to put something away and the new big bin of stuff lured me in. So here I sit. Not cleaning my house. Not switching the laundry.

But all might not be lost - I think we might be Scottish!

This is what I found today - pieces of a newspaper article that when pieced together are just about the entire article. The newspaper is from the People's Journal, Scotland from September 6, 1902. It talks about the death of David Edward - who was a "native of the Mearns". This is the problem. I know that Ethel's maiden name is Edwards. But I don't know what her parents names were. Yet. I do know that they had a farm and I do know that she had brothers - maybe even a set of twins. I do have this great photo of their farm and I like to believe that the people in the picture are her parents. But there are still holes in this theory. I'd like to be Scottish...

Here's the article.

End of 1941

Other than the Christmas card I already posted which I guessed to be from 1941, that's all of the letters. I think that maybe soon after the last letter Ethel joined him or Paul came home. I can't tell which though.

I've been busy scanning the photos that I have and I'll post some of them below. I didn't borrow all of the photos from the boxes in Dad's basement (he said I had enough to get started and we could go through them in installments) but I've scanned just about all of them that aren't of just Paul during the war. So far there are only two of Ethel and Paul together.

Letter from Juanita November 17, 1941

November 15, 1941

November 14, 1941

November 13, 1941

Click on the letter to read it. If you're interested in having me transpose it, let me know!

This is my Grandpa, Paul W. Bien.

I have no idea when this photo was taken (and for that matter whose fingerprints are all over it) but thought it might be nice to have an image of him here. I'll add more of them as I go along.

Want to read the actual letters?

Thanks to my wonderful father in law Ed, I now know how you can read the actual letters from the scanned posts!

Just double click on the scan of the letter and it will open in a new window pretty big - big enough to read!

This is so exciting!

Thanks Ed!

November 12, 1941 Dear little wifey:

November 12, 1941

Dear little wifey:

Its 9:05 and I just came home for the evening so will write this and then turn in. Felt a little tired today so will take a good nights sleep tonight - still have a cold in the head but otherwise OK. Nothing new at school just regular routine. I made a 98 and a 77 in the quiz on Saturday so I guess that's all the news from there. When I came home there was a note in the mail box which I am enclosing so you better write and tell her why didn't call her. It's cold up here now not freezing but there is a cold wind blowing that goes right thru you. Seems funny not to meet you when I come home - the place sure seems empty without you, and last night when I stopped in New Haven for supper it seemed very lonesome to be eating by myself. While I am thinking of it somewhere there is a gray silk muffler of mine, I believe in the top drawer of the chest of drawers please bring it along when you come up. There are several other mufflers there also but only bring the gray silk one. Enclosed is the check for Ernest. There is really nothing write about so I guess I better tell you how much I love you and then I'll go to bed. I love you so much that I would even live in Massachusetts (if I had too) just to be with you.

From your Bald headed husband
Paul

P.S. that's saying a lot.

Here's hoping everything is OK with you. Give my love to Ernest and don't let him work you too hard
Good night honey bunch.

November 11, 1941

In case you can't read it:

Just arrived OK 11 50

Trenton 2 50

George Washington Bridge 4 40

New Haven 6:30

supper 6:30 to 7:20

got lost for about an hour

Cambridge 11 50

Love to you both

Paul

Pretty sleepy just now

Write more tomorrow

Things look OK here

**************************************************************

This is one of my favorites so far.

I like the order of it.

I like that he thought that it was important to tell Ethel and Ernest the time he reached each spot. I wonder why those particular points. Why New Haven?

I like that he wanted to make sure they knew as soon as possible that he was okay and had made it.

I wonder when he mailed it. The postmark says 12PM on November 12.

There is another letter written the next day that I will post next. That postmark says November 12 at 12 M.

I think it will be interesting to note the postmark stamp as we go along. This one says "Buy Defense Savings Bonds and Stamps." I wonder what it will say in 1944.

Letter from Juanita (my grandpa's aunt) to Ethel (my grandma) 10.28.41

This is much harder to read than I anticipated. I skewed it a bit but it's still hard to read. Hmmm. I'll type out the letter I guess.

My dear niece,

Greetings, my dear!

What a thrill to have a new niece, as I have never had the joy of being Auntie to a a niece before and am really looking forward with a great deal of anticipation to meeting you, although I really feel that I do know you from Ernest's report about his new sister-in-law and PAul's delightful letter describinh his "little wife," of whom he is so proud.

Dear, I am so ashamed of myself for not having written you long before this. I fully intended writing even before I received Paul's letter but haven't had a minute to devote to letter writing for several weeks, so please forgive me and I assure you I will try to prove myself to be a better "Auntie" then I have started out to be.

We are delighted that Paul has found such a charming companion and I know you are both going to be very happy. He was wonderful to his mother and I know he will be equally as thoughtful of you and express his devotion in many ways that will afford you comfort and happiness.

I have never had a niece and am so thrilled at this joy which came so unexpectedly and I do hope to have the pleasure and privilege of meeting you real soon. The latch string to our door will always stang open to you and Paul (and, of course, Ernest too) and I sincerely hope it will not be long until we can personally welcome you into the family and until then you both have my sincerest good wishes for everything that will mean happiness. "God Bless you both."

We had such a lovely surprise visit from Ernest and Mrs. Holzsher week before last and I do wish that you and Paul could arrange a similar event but I realize that his time is fully occupied at present and suppose it would be impossible for him to leave long enough to make a trip to Baltimore, but, let's hope he will soon be released from the service and then we shall expect you often.

Tell Paul I will answer his interesting letter before long but felt I must write to you first.

The weather down here has been perfect this Fall although it is very dry and we need rain badly. It did rain a littel eysterday but ot sufficiently to eliminate the scaricity of water in various sections.

I took a lovely trip to Williamsport, Pa and up through the mountains, the week end of Oct. 11th and enjoued the scenery immensely.

I went to remember you and Paul in the way of a gift but will wait until you are settled permanently and then you can tell me what you want.

I sincerely trust that we will be drawn to each other in love fellowship and that your presence in our small family circle will help to bridge the gap that has prevailed, incident to my dear sisters' passing away. I look forward with a great deal of pleasure to the time when we shall meet and in the mean time would love to hear from you. Should you and Paul find time to pose for a picture, please send me one.

If it could be arranged for you, Paul and Ernest to spend Christmas with us this year (we enjoyed having Paul and Sister Bessie so much last year) we would love it, so think it over and see what can be done.

Give Paul a big hug and kiss for me and keep one for yourself. Mother joins me in this message.

Most sincerely, Your new Auntie,

Juanita

************************************************************************

This letter actually reveals a lot.

It tells me that sometime between December 1940 and October 1941 Paul (my grandpa's) mother Bessie passed away and that Paul took care of, and was very devoted to, her.

It speaks of receiving the "unexpected" news about the marriage.

Juanita Snyder lives in Baltimore (though this letter doesn't tell me who "we" is).

"Auntie" is in quotes. Which makes we wonder if she was actually an Aunt or a friend or really Bessie's sister. I am unclear about this relationship.

Well this was the earliest dated letter I have found thus far in the box. I found the cartoons and looked at a couple of them the other day. I'm really dying to post them now, but they don't really come into play in the story for another few years.

What's my progress you may ask? Well for some reason I decided to read all of the letters from 1942 and then thought I would decide what to post, what to scan , etc. since there are so many. The problem is that I got so wrapped up in the story, that I didn't take very good notes about each letter. So I have a feeling that I will need to just go back through the entire year of letters and scan and note each one all over. Which is fine with me really, I think I'll find even more things than I caught the first time through. To many the story probably isn't very exciting, but to me, and hopefully to the fam! it's really pretty interesting.

I'd love to know your thoughts!

Christmas Card 1941?

Okay, I've scanned all of the letters from 1941, at least the ones that I can find for now. Which leads to me to a new theory. I think that after they married, grandma traveled to meet grandpa's relatives (there's a letter from Aunt Juannie to grandma at the end of October 1941 that indicates this) maybe following the last letter of 1941 (November 16) she came back to Massachusetts? I guess I'll have to start on the 68 letters from 1942 and see if they shed any light. There's a pretty funny letter from Juanita to grandpa in November. I've scanned it so maybe I'll post it soon.

The above is a Christmas card I believe grandpa might have given to grandma the first year Christmas they were married.

Unfortunately it's tough to read what the inside says so I'll write it out:

You're a very modern Wifey

Up-to-date as you can be

But you have some real old-fashioned ways

That sure appeal to me.

And I'm mighty glad you have, Dear.

For the biggest thrill in life

Is to spend a Merry Christmas

With a real home-loving Wife!

Hubby

This cracks me up.

I'm realizing that already I'm getting all caught up in parts of this letter and parts of that one and I'm not organizing my thoughts very well.

This is where I'm at today:

There are 5 letters from Paul to Ethel from November 11 to November 16, 1941

There is one letter from Juanita to Ethel at the end of October and one letter from Juanita to Paul in November.

There's the wedding invitation.

There's the announcement in the paper.

There's the church bulletin announcement.

There's the Christmas card.

I have all of these scanned and logged and are in order.

I've put all of the letters in the 1942 pile in order. There seem to be a few letters from a man named Bob. I think Dad might know who that is.

I'm going to read a few of those tonight and see what happens next...

the first letter?

So this so far is the earliest letter I can find. And it seems that Grandpa was studying at Harvard maybe at this point? But Grandma was living with Ernest? in Glenolden? I promise not to post every single letter and every single envelope. But some of the envelopes are so cool! If folks comment that they would like me to post the letters larger, I can try that out. For now I think I will read some new ones. But I might post that first full letter from yesterday about living in MA....I just like it so much!

some first glimpses...at the beginning

I think the one on the left is from a church bulletin maybe?

And the one on the right is from a local paper?

Well I've successfully set up shop on the dining table for the moment though I'm thinking of moving operations up to my wonderful office upstairs cause there's a great table up there and it would be a pretty perfect set up. Not to mention the fact that then it wouldn't be in the dining room.

Anyway, I haven't yet today read any more letters than I read yesterday but I've scanned in a few of the ones from yesterday. I'm realizing that I'm going to have to ultimately be a bit selective....but not yet!

So here are some of them to share with you.

Okay. This is a test....for real this time.

Testing....

I love you so much...

that I would even live in Massachusetts (if I had too) just to be with you.

From your bald headed husband
Paul

P.S. that's saying a lot!
**************************************************************

This is the end of a letter is dated November 12, 1941. It seems to be the first letter in the box. But some of these are out of order so I'm not yet sure that this is "The First". I found a clipping of the wedding announcement presumably from a paper that was local to Grandma - wherever that was.

Just this announcement was enlightenment in and of itself. They seem to have been married around October 10, 1941 iath the First Baptist Church in Roxbury, MA. I'll have to scan this in tomorrow as I'm a bit too tired tonight to type it all in. But I had no idea about a couple of things:
They got married in MA?
Grandpa took classes at Harvard?
Grandma was a nurse for the Household Nursing Association of Boston?

All of these things are news to me!

I'm especially endeared by the line at the beginning of this post, as I myself moved to Massachusetts to be with Eric, as I love him so much. It made me smile. And reading these letters (so far tonight) about how much Grandpa loved Grandma and how homesick he felt (I also read some of the letters in the plastic bag that Grandma had torn up then taped back together which are out of order and appear to be from 1944) for her, made me think of Eric and how hard things have been lately with him being gone during the week for work. Makes me incredibly grateful that he can come home on the weekends, we can talk multiple times a day and if there was an emergency, he is only truly two hours away.

Puts everything in prospective, really.

The beginning

August 14, 2007

Where to begin?

Well when I was younger, most likely between the ages of 10 and 12 my grandma Bien and I sat down at the dining room table at her house on Columbia Street and she took out packets of letters. They were the letters that my grandpa had written to her and she had written to him during World War II. She wanted to share them with me and to show me in particular these cartoons that a soldier stationed with my grandpa had drawn during the time they were stationed together. I was young then and I can only remember snippets of what she told me. Turns out that I was the only one that she ever told much about these letters and the cartoons. What I wouldn’t give for having had a tape recorder that day when I look back now.

In recent years I have been bugging my dad, who has these letters in his basement, to let me see them again. They’ve been there since my grandma passed away almost 10 years ago. For some reason today, most likely brought on by my only remaining grandpa’s passing this past week, I begged him to take me to find the letters so that I could start what I dreamed to be a big project. After dinner he obliged, most likely thinking that this would keep me busy for awhile and not have me home alone sitting bored while Eric is away with work.

We went to the basement and found boxes and boxes and boxes. Actually not that many but it seemed like a lot. It took us a good half an hour to find the box. He was sure it was a clear plastic box. While he dug around the shelves I tore (figuratively, literally I was really careful!) through the other boxes turning over every photo I could get my hands on to see who the photos were of, desperately trying to learn more about my grandparents, of whom I know very little. You see, my dad and uncle know very little about their parents and grandparents subsequently I know even less. In a way, these letters, that seem to span from 1941 to 1945 are all that might tell me about even a tiny part of their lives. I can’t wait to dive in.

Dad finally decided that enough was enough for one night and that, having found the box of letters, I had more than enough to keep me busy for awhile. I agreed and with a huge smile and lots of anticipation, he drove me home.

Here I sit at my dining room table with two boxes before me. One is the clear plastic box of letters that only once I opened did I discover that they are in some semblance of order (making my first mission of putting them in order much easier). I picked up one letter that was at the top. This one was out of order – it’s from July 1944, according to the postmark.

I know to a lot of people these letters might not seem important. But to me they’re liked a treasure chest full of possibility. From these letters I have the chance to get to know my grandparents. That’s something really special. Something that I can’t quite put into words tonight.

I also found a plastic baggy full of letters (after this evening I discovered that grandma Bien LOVED to put things in plastic baggies). I picked out the letter that seemed to be on top of the stack.

This is what it said:

April 27, 1991

Dear Sons,
I started to reread these letters today with the idea that I would read them all and throw them away – so I read these your dad wrote me after he went into the service of our Country. I tore them up but I couldn’t throw them away. So I spent hours putting them back together hoping some time when you are older and have time on your hands you will read them. Maybe you will understand your Dad better and see just a few of the things he went through those years and for many months I was still a bride.
I want you to know that your Dad was a great man in spite of some of his Crazy ways.
I truly love him more to-day than way back then 50 years ago.
He died loving us all so very much and I can go on living until my time comes to be with him again.

I love you both so very much,
Mother



I feel like I am about to embark on some sort of grand adventure. Whatever these letters hold will be exciting for me, for my Dad, my brother, my cousin, aunt and uncle.

My plan is write about my journey through these letters – what I find out, what they make me think of, what I can piece together about my ancestry through them. There are also photos. Though not many of them are labeled I can deduce some things from some of them and I am hopeful that I will be able to figure even more out as I read along. The other half of my grand plan is to create some sort of book with scans of these letters and photos so that my brother Mike and my cousin Megan (and me) will be able to always have these as a part of our own histories. And so that they can share them with their children. And so on. I want us to have some sort of legacy to see and to share.

We’ll see what happens….