Lauren+Slenker+-+1945

// *The letter below are REAL people in my family. My husbands grandfather was Ben Irvin and grandmother was Ella Mae. Ben Irvin grew up with Harry S. Truman as one of his best friends, and told stories about their friendship to his children, and to my husband and his brother. //

September 3rd 1945 Dear Ella May,

It’s been a long, hard year fighting against the Nazi soldiers here in Europe and I am excited to report that the war has been won! I will be returning to America soon and I cannot wait to see you- oh how I’ve miss you. I feel as if I have missed so much while I have been away, and I cannot wait to hear you tell me all about it. See you very soon.

Love always and forever yours, Ben Irvin

September 30th 1945 To my dearest Ben,

I cannot contain my excitement every time I receive a new letter from you, especially this last letter that told me that the war has been won and that you’d be returning to me soon. Since there has been so much going on here in America while you were gone I decided to include a few things that occurred here in this letter. First of all, I’m sure that you have heard of the deaths of both Adolf Hitler and Mussolini already, but just in case you haven't, Hitler and his wife committed suicide together after learning that his army was being overthrown, and Mussolini was executed by gunfire along side his mistress. These were such terrible people and although I do not condone murder, I am thankful that these two men cannot harm any other people. I also heard about the Atomic Bomb that was dropped over Hiroshima in Japan. Your childhood friend, and President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, decided that it was necessary for the American military to attack Japan since they betrayed us by attacking Pearl Harbor. The stories and massive destruction that I have heard about the atomic bomb makes me shudder. How can one bomb kill so many people? I hope that you were nowhere near Japan when the bomb was released, and that you are safely making your way back to me now. There has been so much happening this year, and I feel that we have so much more to talk about. Please come home soon! I miss you so much.

Love you always, Ella Mae Irvin

__Pedagogical Connections:__ When thinking about the students in the 6th grade class that I am observing currently I would have to say that the students would be excited to write a letter to a loved one post-war. The letter would not only describe events that took place during a particular year, but also reflect the feelings had for one another in a respectful manner. Middle school students are very in tune with their emotional side and would do well with creating a "new world" and a "new persona" depicting some sort of family relationship. I think that instead of having them write a letter to their husband/wife as I did, I would have them write a letter to a family member, i.e. mom, dad, bother, or sister in order to explain the events from that year. I'd also require them to include some sort of emotion, whether it be love, sadness, happiness, anger, joy, etc. The emotion will need to match the tone of the letter and events of the year. Students will be shown the example above and how the notion of love is shown through both letter, both by the husband and the wife.