634 12/13/1944 Jim Erwin to Sadie Erwin

Jim Erwin 497th Service Sqdn. 44th Service Group, APO 487, NY Wednesday, December 13, 1944

Sadie Erwin Box 44, Enumclaw, Washington

Dear Folks, Just came back from a wonderful furlough. You probably received the letter I wrote while there. I had a bunch of Christmas cards to mail but the envelopes all stuck to the cards and had to throw them all away. Three packages have arrived from you besides a stack of letters. A package came from Gladys and Elizabeth too. Everybody I know has written and don’t know how I’ll get letters off to everybody. Just hope you will receive this by Christmas. About eight packages of funny papers arrived. Read them all last night. The map came and is really lovely. Better than any the squadron has. They lighted our basketball court while I was gone. We can now play in the evenings. Mrs. Jensen wrote a nice long letter and enclosed a couple pictures taken while Warren was home. She said not to worry about answering. She wrote such a nice letter, I will write to her. A letter arrived today from Jack. Gertrude is going to have a baby sometime in June. Jack expects to go to sea soon so Gert will go home. Both she and Vivian will have babies then. Jack doesn’t know what he is going to do after the war. He is plenty tired of welding. I wouldn’t want a wife and child waiting at home for me. Doesn’t look like I’m even going to have a girl. Haven’t written to Shirl in over two months. The Christmas package certainly looks good and don’t know whether I’ll be able to wait until the 25th or not. Cliff and I weren’t here for Thanksgiving but the fellows said they really had a meal. We are going to have a Christmas party so everything should be nice. Everybody will have the day off. We’re having a track meet in the morning and a ball game that afternoon. We can’t get any trophies around here so I might be going down to Calcutta in a day or so. I wouldn’t mind that at all. Three blankets aren’t any too many these nights. We can wear our wool uniforms and they feel good. The new ship really must have been a nice one. That was some crowd they had at the yard. Doesn’t look like they intend to close down very soon. Got Henry De Jong’s address today. I’ll write to him right after Christmas. Think he is close by. Would enjoy seeing him. Glad you were able to get the trousers. I gained weight while on furlough but hope to lose it soon. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and maybe I’ll be with you next year. With love, Jim