Document 28-1: Correspondence of Evelyn and Fred Albright (1917)

Life at Home and on the Battlefield

Even for the millions of civilians fortunate enough to live far from the front lines, the First World War presented dramatic interruptions to daily life at home. The correspondence of Evelyn and Fred Albright, two Canadian citizens, spanned the years from 1910 through 1917 and included over 550 letters. Fred, a lawyer, enlisted in 1916 and was sent to England for training in 1917. He shared vivid details of his overseas posting in letters to his wife. In letters back to her husband, Evelyn chronicled the challenges and triumphs of her life at home, including her work at Fred’s law office. These excerpts show how the war touched lives far from Europe, capturing not only the Albrights’ individual experiences but also their great love and, following Fred’s death at the Second Battle of Passchendaele, Belgium, in late October 1917, Evelyn’s grief.

Fred to Evelyn

France

Mon evening,

Oct. 1 1917

My darling wife, —

It is one of those beautiful clear evenings which have been our almost invariable portion since coming here. By daylight saving time, which still prevails with the army in France, it is 6.30 and a soft twilight haze has followed the setting of the sun. I went outside and stretched myself out on the bank, when before I started to write, I heard the distant hum of a German airplane and immediately after came the order “Get under cover,” so we all hurried to our dugouts and now I am sitting at the entrance to the dugout which has been my home for the past 4 days and which we are leaving tonight for a while back of the lines.

We don’t rush to cover from airplanes because of danger but because the aircraft are out for reconnaissance and the least movement on the ground is discernable. Naturally we don’t want Heine1 to know what positions we occupy. Of course he knows this and where most of the other trenches now held by us are, both because he can see them and because a large number of them were once occupied by him. But such matters are employed to conceal the guns, dispositions of troops etc. that Fritz2 doesn’t know where our strong points are, so on every available opportunity he sends over his airplanes for observation purposes, just as we do over Fritz’s lines.

Later.

Since writing the above we had to put on our equipment and stand to, ready to move out. But as we have a wait of no one knows how long, I am back in the dugout writing by candle light. One has to snatch such odd moments if he would write at all. I haven’t written any since last Friday. . . .

I haven’t had any parcels from you since about a week prior to leaving Eng. I find that papers & boxes are sent up to the front line trenches however, when possible. Several of the fellows got parcels today. It really is wonderful to think that daily mail can be delivered even to the front line trenches. Yes — and hot tea and occasionally boiled rice or potatoes.

The grub here is remarkably good and there is no stint. Every night ration parties go out for the grub to the head of a narrow gauge railway about a mile away. Drinking water has to be carried rather farther. In some places it is almost impossible to get water for washing purposes at all but here we are unusually fortunate in having right at hand a spring well at the bottom of what Fritz had intended for a dugout before the water appeared.

Wed. evening, Oct 3/17

Once again my abode has changed. On Monday night we came out of the line and while the battalion is still considered as being in support we are back 4 or 5 miles — quite beyond the range of all but the largest guns — and they rarely put a shell over this way except when firing at one of our captive balloons so we feel absolutely safe here.

Though freer from danger this place is in many respects less desirable than the line. There the grub is of the best & unstinted. Here we have a piece of bread a slice of bacon & tea for breakfast. Bully beef, bread jam & cheese for dinner & mulligan bread & tea for supper. There the quarters were much more commodious & comfortable. . . . The dugout from which I last wrote was about from 4 to 5 feet in height. The ceiling & walls were all carefully timbered and planked by Fritz and it was dry & quite comfortable. Of course there were lice — they are everywhere here — but they didn’t trouble much. Most of the boys have already been attacked but as far as I know I am still free.

There were a few rats which we could plainly hear in the walls & ceiling but I never saw any inside. As for our present abode it is more a hut than a dugout for it is not really underground. Made of sandbags with a roof of loose sheets of corrugated iron it is situated on the side of a steep slope facing west. The floor is of chalk clay.

Rat holes in the sand bags abound and the rodents themselves can be seen scurrying all around at any time of day or night. The night before last when I was up for a visit to the latrine I saw 2 of the night cooks out on a rat hunting expedition. One wouldn’t so much mind them outside, but when they play hide and seek around and over you while you are sleeping, and even nibble at one’s toes, as they did the other night to the serj. maj. [sergeant major], they may truly be considered a pest.

Monday night I left a little bread & cheese in my mess tin for morning and as a result there are now 2 holes in the canvas cover and 2 distinct dents in the tin itself where Mr. Rat’s teeth endeavored to punch a hole through the metal.

As for the mansion(?) itself — it is of such dimensions that when McKenzie, Edwards & I are in at night we have to put our packs & equipment outside. During the day we reverse the process. In plain figures, its inside dimensions are nearly 5' 10" long, 4½' wide & 3½' high — quite a snug little apartment for 3. Of course we sleep with our clothes on. We use our greatcoats for bedding, and the first night we each had a blanket over us but yesterday while we were out on a working party someone relieved us of 2 and now we have only 1 blanket for the 3 of us.

Fortunately the weather is mild, although the air becomes quite chilly before morning. However I always sleep warm. I haven’t slept with my clothes off — I mean my outer clothes for 10 days. When we were in the line, of course we had to keep our puttees & boots on and wear our box respirators — and were supposed to keep all equipment on. In the front line everything is worn but in the support line where I was most of the fellows slept with their equipment off.

. . . I told you the night before we left the line we got back here about 3 a.m. had something to eat & got to bed about 3.30. Then 15 of us — among whom were McK. [McKenzie], Edwards & I had to get up at 6, breakfast at 6.30 & start at 7 on a working party. We marched back to within a mile of where we had been in the line — our work was under cover & needless to say we didn’t work very hard. About 3.30 we quit & marched back — arriving here about 5.30. After supper I had a rub bath, & a shave and by the time I read your letter, & one from Don [Albright], I was ready for bed. Today we were on the same work and the same place.

It takes us about 2 hours each way going and coming, & the marching is all in trenches which wind and twist and turn. Nearly all the way the bottom is covered with trench matting — ie — a walk about 2 feet wide made of small slots laid crosswise on 2" x 4" scantling. This is a great boon in wet weather but makes hard walking in dry weather.

We have just been warned for the same working party tomorrow for which I am very glad. If we didn’t go on the day party we’d be on a night one, and its nicer to work in the day and have the night for sleep. Don’t worry about me darling. Though my time is full and I sometimes get tired, I’m hard as nails and never felt in better health in my life. I’m never too tired to sleep or rest and I’m sure I can hold up my end with the best of them.

Do you remember Mr. Lucas who was in the 191 & was with me at Sarcee? His son was killed last Thursday night. I wish you would see or phone Mrs. Lucas and assure her that her boy didn’t suffer. He was killed instantaneously by a big shell which killed 1 other and wounded 2. This was the first night we were in the line. McKenzie helped to carry him out and he is buried near here in a little cemetery where the 50th now inter all their dead. If I get time I’ll write the Lucases a short letter. Anyhow I know they would appreciate your telling them what I have just written.

Oh my darling, I am so glad you have been feeling better, and that you had a good visit at Beamsville. The other fellows have come in now and we must turn in so goodnight my own darling wife.

Your Ferd.3

Evelyn to Fred

Calgary,

Nov. 11 1917

Dearest Ferd: —

One year ago to-day was the Sunday when the gas was off. That was a memorable day, wasn’t it? And to-day was so warm that I didn’t even wear my little fur around my neck, much less carry my muff.

I took David to church this morning and Mr. and Mrs. Peters kindly brought us home. David kicked up a row, but I did not tell his parents as they would have felt very much humiliated, and I’m not sure that a spanking would have done him any good. I gave him a good talking to tonight when he was in bed. He needs a very firm hand, and he’s just at a very saucy age.

Mr. Dagleish preached this morning about the halo on common things. It was a good enough sermon, freely interspersed with quotations from the poets, Ruskin, etc. I wonder why that stuff seems so academic to me now, whereas it used to appeal to me very much. The church was very well filled this morning and the music was good. Wilfred gave an Organ Recital yesterday afternoon, which I did not attend, but if he keeps them up all winter I hope to go often. . . .

Last night, in the night I woke up, and an utterable longing for you swept over me, and so dearest, I prayed for you, and then I went to sleep again. I had just received your letter telling me you were reading the 46th Psalm, the night we read the bad Russian news, and I read it and felt comforted. . . .

There are some things I’d like to tell Wray, yet I do not want to preach at him, and I can’t say some of them without making him think we were discussing him at Beamsville, which as you very well know we were, so I had better keep my mouth shut.

Well dearie, I’ll have a birthday this week. How funny you should think it was in October. . . .

Mr. Clarke told Miss Playter she was to get $40 after she had been there two months, the same as they gave me, but I was there 5 months before they gave me $40. And if she gets $40, then why shouldn’t I get what Fitch, Roy and Bryenton have been getting? You don’t think me mercenary, do you dear? Of course, I know I’m not worth very much to the office just now, but that’s not my fault; I’ll work if I get it to do.

I had a good story to tell you, but I’ve forgotten what it was. Maybe I’ll remember it to tell you tomorrow. Goodnight dearest. I’m going up to get in bed now, and I’ll write to my parents there. You seem far away tonight dearest. I wonder why. You are ever uppermost in my thoughts.

Your wife.

Evelyn to Fred, After His Death in Late October

Taber, Alta

Nov. 23, 1917

Dearest: —

It is not yet two weeks since I wrote my last letter to you, not two weeks since I read that awful telegram that told me you were gone from me.

I suppose it seems silly for me to write to you, but if you know, you’ll understand, and nobody else need know. But it has come to me that time might dim your image and the knowledge of your dear companionship, and I cannot bear to think of that. Then too, my darling, oh my darling, I sometimes cannot believe that you are gone, and I go on pretending as I have ever since you went away last March, that you were coming home again. And if you should — why then you’d be glad of a link between the times. It is so easy, sweetheart, to lose myself in dreaming, for whenever hard unpleasant things have come, I have always made believe things were as I would have them. But in this case, the coming back to Earth is hard.

I think it has been like this, sweetheart. I could not, would not face the thought that you would not come back: I interpreted those psalms we read together, as meaning that you would be kept safe from accident, danger and death. When I knew that you were in the thick of things, I went calmly to sleep at night, believing that you were in God’s hands and that He would keep you safe, for I could not, and do not yet believe that it is His will that any of you should fall. Some of the time, while I so calmly slept and went about my work, you were lying dead Dead! Oh my darling, as I have so often called you — the light of my life.

I have thought of late dear one, that I did not fully realize what it meant to you to go. I was so filled with my own grief, with the thought of my loneliness, and with the dread of what you would have to face, that I did not fully realize what it meant to you to give up all you did and to leave me, fearing that you might never come back. You have always said I wrote cheerful letters; I am glad if you thought they were, for I tried to make them so for you had enough to bear, without me making your lot harder.

The woman is coming up to sweep, so I’ll stop. But my dear one, it almost seems as if you’ll read this some day. Or is it that you are reading it over my shoulder as I write? In any case, you know I adore you, my sweetheart and my friend. Oh darling, I shall try to live on cheerfully and well, but it seems that I am like a tree, half killed my [sic] lightning. Such a tree, I suppose is not expected to give the shade of a whole one — but the question always comes, why should it have been marred and blighted? Do you know now?

Your wife, for wherever you are, my darling, I shall always be that.

An Echo in My Heart: The Letters of Elnora Evelyn (Kelly) Albright and Frederick Stanley Albright, comp. and ed. Lorna Brooke, http://sites.google.com/site/echoinmyheartsite/home.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. From the tone of their letters, how frequent do you imagine contact was between Fred and Evelyn? How might the frequency of contact affect the war experiences of those at the front and those at home?
  2. What does the correspondence reveal about Evelyn’s life without her husband? What had changed, and how had she adjusted to her new circumstances?
  3. What is the role of religion in these letters? When is it mentioned, and how?