Comments on: 1917 WATCHFUL WAITING http://worldwar1letters.wordpress.com Letters Home from a Yankee Doughboy 1916-1919 Sat, 18 May 2013 15:05:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: worldwar1letters http://worldwar1letters.wordpress.com/the-adventure-unfolds/watchful-waiting-1917/#comment-831 Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:03:17 +0000 http://worldwar1letters.wordpress.com/?page_id=24#comment-831 Hi Joyce:
Thanks so much for visiting Soldier’s Mail and for your question. I would refer you to Geography of the Great War under “Great War Links.” Here there is a map which illustrates the U.S. military bases and training camps. There were a large number of installations in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. Depending on their route of travel, you can see by the map which locations your mother’s family might have passed. Of course, the perspective of a young girl needs to be taken into account.

Best Regards,
Rich

]]> By: Joyce Miller http://worldwar1letters.wordpress.com/the-adventure-unfolds/watchful-waiting-1917/#comment-827 Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:46:23 +0000 http://worldwar1letters.wordpress.com/?page_id=24#comment-827 My mother was born in 1909 in Mississippi. About 1915 or 1916, her parents and their 9 children went to Roby, TX to join her uncle’s family, buy a farm, and grow cotton. Drought happened. By 1917 or 1918 they left TX and started their journey home to MS in a covered wagon. My mother would have been about 8 years old when they rode through the Houston area. She remembered passing miles of encampments–soldiers preparing to go to fight in WWI. As a child, she was impressed and talked about that memory for the rest of her life. She died in 2001 at age 91.

My question is this: Is there a record of these encampments, and where exactly were they located? She remembered a dirt road beside a fence behind which soldiers were training.

Thank you and your readers for any information they can give.

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