--- letter_date: 1944-01-23 letter_date_confidence: medium # typed digit "23" vs "25" ambiguous from photo; verify against original postmark_date: unknown # IMG_0002 envelope is dated Jan 23 1944 but may not be this letter's matching envelope postmark_location: McCook, Nebraska arthurs_location: McCook, Nebraska (cryptography training, AAB) sender: Cpl. Arthur M. Yena recipient: Anna L. Yena (sister, "Anne") return_address: | Cpl. Arthur M. Yena 783rd Bomb. Sqd. (H) 465th Bomb. Gp. A.A.B. McCook, Nebraska. delivery_address: unknown for this letter (Anna L. Yena, Quaker Lane, West Warwick, Rhode Island) letter_type: Typed (typewriter, on Army Air Forces letterhead with eagle emblem) pages: 1 scanned (likely page 2 with signoff exists in original) censorship_passed: not applicable (mailed within US, not war-zone) transcription_status: draft transcription_confidence: high # typed text, fully legible despite period stains source_scan: background files/IMG_0001.jpg audio_path: audio-final-pops/letter-01_1944-01-23_to-anne.mp3 # production audio (~2:14), generated 2026-05-10 --- # Letter — January 23, 1944 — Arthur to Anne > **Note**: First-pass transcription from `background files/IMG_0001.jpg`. > Single-page scan; the visible text ends mid-letter at "and like it or else" > with no signoff, suggesting a page 2 exists in the original that hasn't been > scanned yet. Confidence on the body text is high (typed, very legible). --- **Letterhead (top right):** ``` Cpl. Arthur M. Yena 783rd Bomb. Sqd. (H) 465th Bomb. Gp. A.A.B. McCook, Nebraska. January 23, 1944. ``` **Center top:** US Army eagle emblem letterhead. --- Dear Anne; Say what goes on anyway? When you wrote your last letter we were already living 16 days in the new year, but you didn't seem to realize the difference, because you still addressed it as 1943. What bothers me is that I did the same thing several times already myself. Karl called my attention to it and so did Connie. Is it Spring, love, fever, leap year, or just ordinary carelessness? Well I guess things have quieted down by now at home in regards to "Blessed Events". I'm glad to hear Kathleen and baby as well as Lucille and Dennis are fine. I'm also a little puffed up over the fact that my latest nephew is named after me. I can realize what you have to put up with in Little Kathleen and Johnny, because I can remember when they weren't angels before. They say too that it grows worse as time goes by, so I imagine you have to put up with more now than before. All the same I get to miss them. I'll bet you wonder how in the world I could. I wonder too, because I can still remember those times when I would have loved to take them one on each knee and paddled away all day on them. It's just like you say, you probably never realized how much you liked them, until Herman called up for a date. The same here, although at the time, I would have been perfectly satisfied not to come in contact with them all day; now I actually do miss them. The weather has been pretty nice here lately. It's sort of like back home — you never can predict it from one day to the next. It's been too good to last. So your boy friend went and made a hero of himself, eh? Say, if you do get a picture of him that you can spare I would like to see my future brother-in-law just once before you tie the knot. I bet he's the tall, dark and handsome type, and judging from the clipping he's probably on the style of Errol Flynn. You know I often thought about what would happen if Johnny got in the Army. Not that I [max?] claim to be a model person myself, but there's one of two things that would happen to him. By that I mean, he would in all probability change either for better or worse. In the Army you have to sort of lay aside your pride and prestige for a while to get along. That might sound funny, but it's true. When you get in the Army they don't give a darn who you are or what kind of a job you had before. That's also contrary to popular belief. I've seen proof of that already on finding former cooks doing mechanics work and vice versa. The first thing you lose is your social standing. Whereas you or I or Johnny would never think of washing dishes for a living, in the Army you do it, get $50 for it a month and like it or else. [end of scanned page — likely continues on page 2; signoff not captured] --- ## Notes on context - The four "Blessed Events" reference: Pops's siblings Kathleen and Lucille had just had babies; the "latest nephew named after me" suggests Lucille's son was named Arthur. - "Karl" = Pops's brother. "Connie" = his McCook girlfriend (clingy per other letters). - "Herman" appears to be a previous boyfriend of Anne or one of Anne's friends. - "My future brother-in-law" — Anne was getting married in June 1944; this is teasing about her fiancé. - "Johnny" = Pops's younger brother John, whose possible Army enlistment Pops worries about throughout 1943-44. - The Army-philosophy paragraph is one of the more reflective passages in the early letters; the "in the Army you have to sort of lay aside your pride and prestige" line is worth pulling for the narrative. ## TTS-prep notes (for ElevenLabs generation) When feeding this letter to the voice clone, normalize: - "Dear Anne;" → "Dear Anne," (semicolon reads awkwardly aloud) - "16 days" → "sixteen days" (safer than relying on number expansion) - "1943" → "nineteen forty-three" - "$50 for it a month" → "fifty dollars a month for it" (rephrase for natural cadence) - Drop "[max?]" — uncertain word, probably "may" or "really" - Smooth a couple of run-on commas into periods for breath pauses The cleaned generation text is what was passed to take 01 of letter-01 production audio.