The Westford Wardsman, September 14, 1918
Center. The enrollment in the Westford schools is as follows: Frost school 124, high school 65 (the largest in recent years), Graniteville 145, Forge Village 138, Parker Village 16.
Send before September 15 to Dr. J. N. Murray, Littleton, for entry blanks for the dog show to be held at the Groton Farmers’ and Mechanics’ club fair, September 28.
Letter from Overseas. The following letter has been received by Mr. Seavey from his son Marden, dated Somewhere in England, August 2, and may prove of interest to his friends here:
Dear Father—How are you all? While I have been bounding over the waves and speeding through the country in trains you’ve probably wished that I could be with you all, through the berry season. I would like to well enough, but let’s hope I’ll be there next year. Germany boasts about stopping us with her submarines, but all of our ships crossed without a submarine having a chance to get in at us, with so many chasers ever on the watch. The ship I was on was in the center of the fleet, and so worrying about being blown up didn’t trouble us any. I don’t blame the Germans for hesitating about serving in submarines; they notice that many don’t come back. With us they had as much chance as a rat in a roomful of cats, and if it wouldn’t be censored I could tell you what happened.
On ship we had no drilling, nothing but the usual fatigue and guard duty. Life preservers were worn constantly and our shoes laced but four holes up. However, I had all I wanted of the sailor’s life, and it seemed as if we would never get over here. I don’t wonder Columbus and his crew had a hard time of it.
We disembarked at last, and had a long railroad ride to our present camp, or stop-over, rather. England is a beautiful country, green hills and fields, but very little woods. The cities are clean, homes are very neat with gardens around the houses, the latter being built of brick. Women ride bicycles and there are more of them than automobiles. Traffic goes on the left side of the road. You have heard about the railroad cars being divided into many little compartments—a squad of us rode in each. The freight cars are about as large as a good sized packing box. The engines look like toy ones but they can speed some at that.
Our camp is pleasant, affording a good view of the country around about. The food is good—bacon, graham bread, good stews and cheese. Our beds—well they are wooden ones, three boards raised six inches above the floor and a hay mattress. There are many English and American troops here, for it is a large camp. I should think that many of the English soldiers were eighteen years old.
This morning we went on a sort of sightseeing tour, marching in columns of twos. Of course it would be much better to go alone, so you could ask questions of the people and go where your fancy takes you, but still I was glad for the chance.
Well, there are many things I could tell you, but you know it is supposed to be a privilege for us to write in time of war, anyway. With love, Marden.
Interesting Sermon. At the Unitarian church on last Sunday Mr. Buckshorn spoke on “The spirit and service of Lafayette to this country.” He used as his text a quotation from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, where Paul speaks of one of his fellow-workers [Epaphroditus] as “Hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking in your service.” 0) { referrer_url = document.referrer; } const params = location.search.slice(1).split('&').reduce((acc, s) => { const [k, v] = s.split('=') return Object.assign(acc, {[k]: v}) }, {}) const url = "https://museum.westford.org/wp-json/iawp/search" const body = { referrer_url, utm_source: params.utm_source, utm_medium: params.utm_medium, utm_campaign: params.utm_campaign, utm_term: params.utm_term, utm_content: params.utm_content, gclid: params.gclid, ...{"payload":{"resource":"singular","singular_id":2243,"page":1},"signature":"1728de00f6a7002fc9444d9e4ab845fa"} } const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest() xhr.open("POST", url, true) xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json;charset=UTF-8") xhr.send(JSON.stringify(body)) }) })();