Veterans' Day. A love story...

Today is Veterans Day. Daddy still calls it Armistice Day, remembering "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918 marking the cease fire on the Western Front of WWI. His father, Pvt. Zach Carter Cummings, Co. D 39th Infantry 4th Division, was marching toward the sound of the guns when over the hill he heard the silence of peace. Instead of fighting in the bloody trenches of France, his war experience was with an occupation force in Germany. Here is a photo of my grandfather, taken "on the Rhine River Germany April 1919."

And a photo of the girl he left behind him, Miss Oma Calahan, in Farmersville, Texas. She wrote on the back of this photo: "I wasn't mad when this was made. I was just facing the sun." This photo was made in the autumn of 1918 and was one of those she sent to him in a letter.

For family and others who would like a bit more of the story, I've transcribed and linked three of my grandfather's letters:

1. in late October as he sailed for Europe
2. on November 19 at the edge of the battlefield in France
3. on November 28 from Germany

at my domain: http://www.evelynwhitakerlibrary.org/blog_the_life_i_read/id9.html

And as she always does on this date Mother recited a poem:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/mccrae.html