Leona's Christmas Surprise - 12/23/1917

112th Sanitary Train

37th Division

Camp Sheridan

Dec 23, 1917

My Dear Dad: - 
Mother & Leona arrived yesterday afternoon. I can't tell you how surprised I was to see Leona. Mother tells me you sent her as your Xmas present. Well, believe me, you couldn't have found anything in the world, that is appreciated as much as that present. I only wish I could keep her here. I sure am glad you sent her, with mother, & I don't know how I can ever thank you for same.

Last evening we had supper & then went to a show.

They have a fine room and the house is only four blocks from town.

I will probably go up town again this moon, and shall probably spend the remainder of the day with them.

Tell Marion, I am sending her a little remembrance. Mother will bring it her when she returns.

All O.K. Love to All
Howard 

It warms my heart to see that Leona surprised Howard and how in love he seemed with her. If you are new to this blog, Howard had proposed to Leona when he was still a teenager. She told him that he would need need to wait. I can't even imagine how lovely it would have been for him to just be with his mother, let alone Leona. I'm sure it was one of the best Christmases he spent.

The above picture is the one I have of Leona that would be the closest to the age she was when she visited Howard - almost 23. This was her high school senior picture from New Washington High School in Crawford County, Ohio. I think about how my own grandfather carried around my grandma's senior picture in his wallet until the day he died. It makes me wonder if, perhaps, Harold had a photo just like this with him during his time in the war.

Unfortunately, I have never come across a wedding picture of Howard and Leona, which would have been more than two years later in August 1920. In that day and age, Leona being a bride at 25 would have probably made her an old maid. I respect her for not following the "easy" path of getting married at 21 like other girls her age; she was a "career" woman as a nurse and was likely very much her own person when they married.