After my parents died a few years ago, my brother and I
found among their possessions a diary that revealed a family secret we didn’t
know. Our paternal grandfather had a wife and child before he married our
grandmother, and it appears he left the first wife under less than honorable
circumstances. Likewise, a World War II letter I found on eBay a while back
held a surprising secret for a family in Vermont. Let’s start at the start.
I periodically search eBay for postcards and letters written
by soldiers during WWII. If I see an item where I can identify and locate
descendants of the soldier, I alert them to it in case they want it. Over the
course of this year I’ve connected several families with letters and postcards,
along with one heirloom Bible carried by a pilot who was killed in the war.
A few weeks ago I spotted a letter that was written by
Marine PFC George Breslen in 1943. The letter was addressed to Mr. and Mrs.
Allen C. Greer in Indianapolis, parents of one of PFC Breslen’s Marine buddies.
The salutation was, “Dear Mom and Pop Greer,” and the letter went on to assure
them that their son Johnny was doing fine in the Marines.
My research showed that PFC Breslen survived the war,
married, and had children. His wife, Josephine, died in 1974, and he died in
1979 at age 56. With a little more
research I located his son, Jeff Breslen, who lives in Vermont, and sent him an
email telling him where to find the letter on eBay. He replied with a very
cordial note thanking me for the information. He said the letter was especially
important to him because he was only 11 when his dad died and he knew very
little about his father’s WWII service.
Jeff and I both wondered why PFC Breslen was writing to the
Greers. He contacted the eBay seller and learned that the seller had bought a group
of letters from an estate sale for the Greers, and had even more letters from
PFC Breslen to Mr. and Mrs. Greer. Jeff bought all the letters, and they
contained a surprise. As Jeff tells it:
“The most perplexing
thing in the letters was when my father references ‘his new wife June!’
My older sisters recall that my father was engaged during the war to a June
from Australia but they were, according to them, never married. In fact
they remember occasionally when my mother was angry with my father making
comments like “You should have married June!” He references June as his
wife several times in the letters. We’re all curious if in fact he was
married to her and that little fact wasn’t made known to anyone else. I
guess maybe one day we can ask him!!”
As for why PFC Breslen was writing to the Greers, the
letters were inconclusive. Jeff explained:
“(The letters) were
very interesting. Unfortunately they didn’t shed any light on why he was
writing to the Greers. It sounded like their son also wrote to them so I
think my father also did to emphasize that the Greer’s son was doing
well. I sensed that maybe their son asked my father to do it to ease some
fears of the war and to confirm he was safe. The letters
didn’t have a lot of details about the war or what they were doing. Quite
a few comments about how important it was to be serving and that they were
hopeful it would end soon. There were two letters from late 1943 and two
from 1944 – April and June. It appears that based on what he talks about
there must have been more letters but for some reason they weren’t in the box
that the seller bought at the estate sale.
Jeff said his brief searches for a “June Breslen” in
Australia have not turned up anything. Maybe I’ll join the search . . .
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