Eugene Morrow Violette, professor of history at the First District Normal School, collected these letters from Kirksville families whose friends and family members fought in the Great War.  Some of the letters were the result of a campaign by the Normal School and the Kirksville Rotary Club to ensure that soldier’s received mail; nearly all of the letters were printed in the Kirksville Daily Express or the Normal School Index.

Digitized here for the first time, these letters represent less than half of the collection currently housed in the stacks of Special Collections at Truman State University’s Pickler Memorial Library.  Some of these letters tell of European travel, the excitement of camp-life, the hellish front lines.  Whether read as a collection or individually, these letters are voices of the Great War.

Violette Collection of WWI Soldiers’ Letters. Mudsp Collection  V1. Truman State University Special Collections.