Think Back Thursday - A WW II Thank You Letter

I have come to the end of my series of letters from my maternal grandmother Esther to her siblings. I have some other letters from Esther that I will post later. Today's post will be of interest to those related to my paternal grandmother, Dora Elaine Morris Hall.

During World War II, she received this hand-written letter from Do Bouman that I wanted to share with you.

The first thing I noticed was that the letter was clearly written by a pen that you dip into an ink bottle. How cool is that?

 Here is the content of page 1:

DO BOUMAN

'S HERTOGENSBOSCH, 1/4 '45
KONINGSWED 78

Dear Mrs Hall,

It is my pleasure to write to you and hope my lettre finds you in the best of health.

I suppose you are wondering already who this letter is from, therefore I shall tell you before I go any further. I am a Dutch girl and I am eighteen years of age. My name is Do - pronounced Doe - . As I am not at school, it has been my pleasure to give my services to social work, which entails mostly of helping the poor people of my town.

Now I will tell you the reason for my writiiiing you. This morning while helping in a room of a large building which was demolished by fire owing to enemy action, I found your address attached to a nice warm pyjama suit which was very kindly sent by you and was to be given to one of the eight children of the family who was very badly in want of it. Therefore my dear Mrs. Hall you may rest assured that your kind and lovely gift has gone to a person whom I am sure you would have liked it to be given to. Actually it was a little girl seven years of age and when it was given to her she wanted to put it on immediately. She was so excited she danced around the room with joy. "Oh what a nice sleep I will have tonight. I will not hear the bombs."

the parents of this particular family do not understand English and thought that your address which was on the little ticket was the measurements of the suit, so when I go to see this family again they will be very happy to know that I have written and thanked you for the splended gift which I am certain they would like to have done themselves had they been able to write in English.

I find great pleasure in helping such people and especially in writing this humble lettre of thanks which I hope you understand. I could carry on for a long time telling you about my work and conditions here, but that would I'm afraid take up too much of your time, for your kindness the the children and myself will offer our prayers for in return.

God bless you in health and happiness.

Yours sincerely

Do Bouman

Koningsweg 78.
'S Hertogenbosch
The Netherlands

Sorry page 2 is sideways...