Regarding replies to the families, they are almost always short letters giving particulars of a burial (or regrets that the grave hasn't been found). This reply is typical:

They are open to the public at LAC in Ottawa (the numbers for these boxes are RG 9 III B1, boxes 3440-1). Unfortunately, they are the original files from the Canadian War Graves office, arranged in date order as they were received and answered, so it's hard to search for individual names.

Yes, that's him. His body was never identified, and his name is on the Menin Gate Memorial.

This is a translation of a letter sent by a German soldier to the mother of a Canadian soldier. The soldier was killed in 1916, and the German kept his personal effects for years until he could send them to John Robertson's mother. She sent the information to the CWGD in hopes it would help find him

During the Second World War, the Imperial War Graves Commission pulped most of the letters families sent 1917-1930s. That makes the letters in the Canadian archives (LAC) all the more remarkable. This sketch shows comrades cooperating to help find a man who was killed at Passchendaele in 1917:

I’ve spent the afternoon reading letters from families to the Canadian War Graves Detachment and I’m a wreck. “The boys of the 25th Nova Scotia are coming home to day but my darling boy will not be with them they have left my lovely boy somewhere”

Andre was an Italian citizen, born in France, who emigrated to Montreal. He enlisted in the Canadian forces and was sent overseas, but then got kicked out for being Italian. @vandawilcox.bsky.social

Most of the Canadian letters are in English or French, but not all of them. I just went through a bunch of letters in Italian. Andre Carini, a Canadian soldier born in France, writes in English but apologizes, “I hope you understand my letter I cant writte good anglish.”

Most of the letters are handwritten, but here is a typed one that is easier to read.

If you’re ever frustrated by a garbled autocorrect text, just think of the poor Canadian army clerk who had to figure out a plausible meaning for the telegram that came in as “ungorgeous sylphish cable jerboa.”

The black binders have forms with handwritten notes and corrections as the Canadians searched for their dead. The brown binders have typed information. Most are brief, but ~15% contain details about the circumstances of death. Pte. Maxwell Burr died of wounds suffered “while on a burial party.”

Today, I am in Ottawa to look at Canadian exhumation and reburial records from the First World War. Men who were never found had their names added to the Vimy Memorial, and (occasionally) removed, like Cpl. AC Abbott, who is buried at Serre Road No. 2 in Beaumont Hamel.

Taking photos in the archives just so I can remember how to reassemble the ice cream sandwich of doom

One of my favorite documents is a 1939 Treasury inquiry re: wages for War Graves gardeners, in which the writer is APPALLED that the sons of British ex-servicemen living in Belgium have the gall to "look Belgian." It would be "quite monstrous" to pay them the wages mandated by the Industrial Court.

We do get some smiles in their indoor studio photos from around 1910-1915. And one of my favorite photos of her (maybe 1898-1900ish) has her looking animated, though not full-on "say cheese" (she's the one closest to the camera, with the white bow).

About the same era, her siblings and stepsiblings and half-siblings in their swimsuits. The little collars! I hope they had a great time.

Sometimes in the late summer, I think of my great-grandmother going to Coney Island with her friends (they were all seamstresses together in New York). This would be maybe 1910-1915. They don't always look giddy in the photos, but she remembered these as some of her happiest times.

New crochet bags for the niblings. The butterfly and rocket designs are adapted from designs by Pacific Knit Co.; the fish is my own design.

September 1776: The town of Reading, Mass. calls all free men over age 21 to a meeting to discuss giving consent to the current MA legislature and Council to draft a state constitution. They are called, "In the Name of the Independent States of America." www.liveauctioneers.com/item/2356923...

This is not a problem my children had. Other problems, yes, but this specific one, no.

I still think the new Massachusetts license plate format (#ABC##) is weird. Sometimes it spits out a date and sometimes it’s 1 His Royal Highness 69.

Did the Tartan Army bring Scottish Johnny Appleseed with them? Because Boston’s sidewalk thistles are *thriving*

Can taste the wildfire smoke today (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

I would like to do my reading in my back yard, but that displeases the dinosaur who has made her nest among the vegetables.

I spot-checked a specific accusation in that review, and it does not hold up. Here is the review, then the relevant paragraph, then the primary source. The paragraph is full of quotations that are from the cited diary entry. The "above comments" are Greenidge's own analysis of the sources.

Meanwhile, Frank went to war. He served as an ordinary private in Co. D, 12th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. He contracted dysentery during his service and died of ulcerated bowels on January 22, 1863. Later that year, Robert C. Winthrop began presenting the Winthrop Family Papers to the MHS.

Have you ever used the Winthrop Family Papers at the @mhs1791.bsky.social? You owe that access (in part) to Frank Winthrop, a soldier who died for the Union in 1863.

Putting together a list of requests for an archival visit, and I am tempted to call this item: an ear of corn.

A profile of Rev. Bradley from 1904 called him, "a man of more than average attainments and a gentleman in whom the people of Middletown may have implicit confidence."

Later in life, Anthony Bradley went by Mark Anthony Bradley and then became Rev. Mark A. Bradley. He served churches in Harlem and St. Frances A.M.E. Zion Church in Port Chester, New York.