Sunday, January 6, 2019

Lt. Wade Bowman Writes of French Celebration of End of War, 1919

From The Hickory Daily Record, Jan. 6, 1919

Triumphant Procession for American Soldiers

Describing his march through Lorraine, Lieut. Wade V. Bowman, under date of November 28, tells Mrs. Bowman that he will never forget the thing she witnessed in the province which America has helped France to regain. In every town the soldiers march under arches of flowers, “Welcome,” and the inhabitants cry “Long live America! Long live France!” and hail the Yankees as liberators. Little children and girls throw flowers at the soldiers and it is a triumphant procession. They run alongside of Lt. Bowman’s horse, and he is a spoiled man, he admits, especially since he has had very little of the food he liked so much at home—milk, butter and eggs. He is anxious to return and is longing for the day.

The next day Lt. Bowman wrote again. He was smoking his pipe in a comfortable Alsatian home, where the people invited him down to drink wine and offered to converse with him in either French or German, but he was not strong on either language. He was longing to return to his loved ones in Hickory, he said, and his pipe reminded him of home.

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