| Item Description: | "This archive includes a large number of war dated letters and documents, a scrap book with war clippings and other war related items kept by either Lt. Bewman Gates Dawes or a member of his family, and a mss diary in both ink and pencil covering Jan. 8 through July 10 1918. This 4x6 in. diary in dark cloth boards is printed in France with heading in French....[Dawes] was an engineer in France at least as early as 1916 and joined the American Ambulance service in 1917, then a supply company in the French Army and later the 17th Engineers Co. with the American Expeditionary Forces in Fance, and it appears from his diary that his company was in charge of a major port and the distribution of the supplies that arrived to the front.....These letters give very detailed accounts of the life in port and while in Paris....Most of the letters are from 1917....The scrap book has a large chromolithograph on the cover of 'American Ambulance Service' in action with pasted title below reading 'B.G. Dawes Jr./May 1917-1919'. It is packed with newspaper clippings, many of which must have come from Marietta papers and deal directly with Dawes and other local boys serving in France. It also has several telegrams from the war, pamphlets, 'American Ambulance Service' document, a photograph of Dawes, his last will and testament and much more. A truly unusual WWI archive of a soldier who served in both the French and American Armies during that bloody conflict." - bookseller's description. |
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