June 13 and 14: A V-Mail and a regular letter from Anna. As with the letters that were written close to each other, for the purposes of narration and storytelling I will treat them as one.
Anna writes the V-Mail “as a go-in-between before you get the regular Bible which I write. This may be the last letter I am writing to you before the baby is born. If I will be able and strong enough I will write from the hospital…” The “Bible” she refers to in this case is her four paged single spaced typewritten letter of the 14th.
Eddies brother, Billy Lubinski, was home on a fifteen day furlough and “didn’t feel too good about going because he expects to go overseas when he goes back. He told his father he is going to Nebraska and papa is all happy but he told us different. Eddie’s father…worries too much.” Anna writes that she said goodbye to Billy over the phone because she “didn’t want to cry and carry on like I usually do…. I hated to see him go…it is like in Anthony’s case when…the thought that he would be leaving for the Pacific kept hanging there like a plague… and we just couldn’t get it out of our heads. …I can’t help myself because I guess tears were made to be used…”
Anna relays that the draft board is making another run at drafting Eddie and that Eddie’s boss is pushing back on the draft board due to Eddie’s job as an auto mechanic. As Anna writes of Eddie’s boss, “He can’t understand why they keep on bothering Eddie when he can’t get as good a man to replace him and Eddie has done a wonderful job of keeping transportation rolling during the war… I guess it would break the boss’s heart if they took Eddie because he depends so much on Eddie.” Of course, the flip side of the issue is that the Army would be able to put someone with Eddie’s skills to good use.
In one of his previous letters, Dad had asked for a few things from home. As a result, there is a package headed his way with “two boxes of Mexsanna [heat powder]” and “four shirts with short sleeves.”
Anna continues expressing her hopes for the near future, “Now that we know we won’t be seeing Anthony for some time to come we are having hopes of seeing Stanley soon. From the last letter…he gives us some hope and it was on the news that the ships with troops landed in New York Harbor and in Boston… We haven’t heard from Stanley the second week [in a row] now but as usual there may be reasons for not hearing from him.”
Even so, Anna addresses a paragraph of the letter to Stanley to let him know that they have received his letter “about his trip over Europe” and that they are “glad that the censorship is over in England and we can get some news after all this time.” Anna also expresses that they are happy to hear the news that Stanley “will be walking the streets of our fair city again” and that he “might get here in time to be the godfather of our baby.”
Anna also provides the latest new on her pregnancy and that she is “still home and around although I don’t feel good and can’t get around much or do much. Things are hanging in the balance… I am expecting to go to the hospital any day…the doctor said he can’t be sure I will last till next week but the sooner the better… I get so I can’t walk and just sit around waiting. I promise you that if I am able to write to you from the hospital I will… But if you don’t hear from me don’t worry…”
In other news from Albany:
- “Josephine Gecewicz married Walter Ploski”
- “Mary Fodyma, the one who…married Stanley Zylka from the Navy not so long ago had a baby girl…last month.”
Anna closes the letter, “Well, I have covered all the news on the home front so I will close till the next time.”
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