--- audio_path: --- # Letter — undated "Tuesday night" (postmark 25 Apr 1946), to Mom and Pop and everyone **Sender**: Art (Arthur M. Yena) — no return address on envelope; writing from a stateside hospital, Ward P-18 (likely Newport, R.I.) **Recipient**: Mr. & Mrs. John Yena, Quaker Lane, West Warwick, R.I. **Date written**: undated — "Tuesday night" (see note; best reading ~23 Apr 1946, the Tuesday before the Thu Apr 25 1946 postmark) **Postmark**: NEW[PORT?] R.I. · APR 25 · 12-M · 1946 (3¢ Thomas Jefferson civilian stamp, NO military return address) **Stationery**: Plain — no letterhead noted **Type**: Handwritten **Scan location**: `scans/processed/1946-04-23_to-mom-and-pop_hospital/` *(scan-mapping pending)* **Transcription source**: Gemini/ChatGPT vision pass 2026-06-06, 2-pass QC 2026-06-07 **Confidence**: ~90% (text clean; the DATE is the uncertainty — see note) **Note**: ⚠️ **DATE / CONTEXT FLAG — the headline of this letter.** Undated "Tuesday night" note announcing he has just been admitted to a hospital. The envelope bears a civilian 3¢ Jefferson stamp, an Apr 25 1946 NEW[PORT?] R.I. postmark, and **no military return address** — and Pops compares the routine to *"the Army hospital"* in the **past tense**, which reads as a **discharged veteran** in a civilian/VA hospital. Strong reading: a **1946 malaria recurrence** (the malaria he carried home from Italy) treated near Newport R.I., written the Tuesday (~Apr 23) before the postmark. The locked plan also cautioned this could be a **~1945 wartime letter on a reused/1946-postmarked envelope** — both readings are presented below. Filed under **1946-04-23**, date hedged, flagged for Alex / Mom-interview. --- ## Transcript > Tuesday night > > Dear Mom and Pop and everyone, > > Well, I'm here and so far, not bad. Took quite a ride in the ambulance this afternoon. The other fellow whom they were to pick up in Pawtucket turned out to be in Attleboro instead, so by 4:00 I finally hit the bed. > > The general routine here is about the same as the Army hospital. They took a malaria smear on me already. I'm in Ward P-18 — in a separate room for the night anyway from the gang. Visiting hours are from 2:00 to 4:00 on Wednesday, Saturday, Sundays, and holidays. > > So far I'm feeling more or less the same. I was notified that you called this afternoon so you probably know the visiting hours anyway. When you get the chance why come up, but don't be worrying. > > Love and stuff to all > Art. --- ## Major content / narrative significance - ⭐⭐ **THE MALARIA THREAD — AND A STRONG CASE THAT THIS IS A POST-WAR (1946) HOSPITALIZATION.** The single most consequential line is *"They took a malaria smear on me already."* Pops served as a cryptographer in **Italy (1944–45)** — a malaria theater — and family memory holds that recurrent malaria is what *"closed the college door"* after the war. This letter is the only document in the corpus that catches a **malaria episode being actively worked up in a hospital**. If the 1946 reading is correct, it is the missing clinical hinge between *"came home Sept/Oct 1945"* and the *"malaria killed the college plan"* family story. - ⭐⭐ **WHY 1946, NOT 1945 — THE ENVELOPE EVIDENCE.** Three independent signals point post-discharge: (1) the envelope carries a **civilian 3¢ Thomas Jefferson stamp**, not free/airmail military franking; (2) there is **no military return address** (contrast Item 2 in this same folder, the Feb 1945 letter, whose envelope is a full *"783rd Bomb Sq (H), 465th Bomb Gp (H), APO #520"* return with a censor stamp); (3) Pops compares the place to *"the Army hospital"* in the **past tense** — he is benchmarking a *new* (civilian/VA) hospital against his *former* Army experience. Together with the **Apr 25 1946** postmark, the natural reading is a **veteran admitted to a civilian or Veterans hospital near Newport R.I., ~April 1946**. - ⭐ **BOTH READINGS ON THE RECORD (per locked plan).** The locked plan flagged a competing possibility: a **wartime (~1945) letter mailed in a reused or mis-dated 1946 envelope**. That cannot be fully excluded from text alone, but it is the *weaker* reading here — a wartime Army-hospital letter would not normally describe the Army hospital comparatively as an outside reference, nor travel by **local civilian ambulance** routing through **Pawtucket / Attleboro / Newport**, all greater-Providence/Rhode-Island-MA-line geography. **Filed 1946-04-23, date hedged, surfaced for Alex.** - ⭐ **LOCAL R.I. GEOGRAPHY = STATESIDE, NEAR HOME.** *"The other fellow whom they were to pick up in Pawtucket turned out to be in Attleboro instead"* — Pawtucket R.I. and Attleboro MA are both minutes from West Warwick. The **NEW[PORT?] R.I.** postmark points to a Newport-area hospital (Newport had a large Naval/Base hospital complex; a VA or naval facility there is the leading candidate for "Ward P-18"). This is unmistakably a **near-home, stateside** admission — the family can drive up for the **2:00–4:00 Wed/Sat/Sun** visiting hours, and indeed *"I was notified that you called this afternoon."* - ⭐ **"WARD P-18" + "THE GANG."** He is placed in a numbered ward (P-18), *"in a separate room for the night anyway from the gang"* — i.e., new-admission isolation pending the malaria smear result, with a shared ward ("the gang") to follow. Consistent with an infectious-disease workup protocol. - **TONE — CHARACTERISTIC POPS REASSURANCE.** *"don't be worrying"* and *"Love and stuff to all"* echo his lifelong sign-off habit of dampening the family's alarm (cf. the 1943 Miami *"Tell Mama not to worry"*). Even hospitalized, he leads with *"not bad"* and *"feeling more or less the same."* - **CORPUS PLACEMENT — THE LATEST DATED ITEM IN THE ARC, IF 1946.** Pops came home Sept/Oct 1945; the corpus otherwise tails off into the Aug–Oct 1945 V-J-Day / occupied-Japan inbound letters. If this is April 1946, it is **the latest Arthur-authored letter in the collection** and the first post-homecoming document — a quietly important bookend showing the war following him home in his bloodstream. ## Family-tree refresh from this letter - **Arthur ("Art")** — the sender; signs *"Art."* No unit, no rank — consistent with a discharged veteran (vs. wartime *"Cpl. Arthur M. Yena"*). - **Mom & Pop (John Yena Sr. & Elizabeth Yena)** — addressees ("Dear Mom and Pop and everyone"); called the hospital the afternoon of admission. - **"the gang"** — the other patients on Ward P-18 he expects to join after his first isolated night. Not named. - **"the other fellow" picked up in Attleboro (not Pawtucket)** — an unnamed fellow patient sharing the ambulance pickup run. Not necessarily a known correspondent; no name given. ## Open questions - ⚠️ **DATE — 1946 vs ~1945?** Best reading **~23 Apr 1946** (Tuesday before the Apr 25 1946 postmark). Competing reading: a ~1945 wartime letter on a 1946-postmarked/reused envelope. **Alex to resolve; Mom-interview candidate.** - ⚠️ **POSTMARK CITY** — *"NEW[PORT?] R.I."* read as **Newport**, but the [?] stands; confirm against the scan. Newport R.I. fits the naval/VA-hospital hypothesis. - **WHICH HOSPITAL?** Ward P-18, malaria smear, Newport-area, civilian/VA — **was this the Newport Naval Hospital, a VA facility, or a state/civilian hospital?** Strong Mom-interview / records item. - **IS THIS THE "MALARIA THAT CLOSED THE COLLEGE DOOR"?** If 1946, does this admission line up with the family memory that malaria recurrence derailed Pops's college plans? **Top Mom-interview question.** - **HOW MANY MALARIA RECURRENCES?** This catches one episode; were there others stateside after 1945? - **THE 906/473 etc. are wartime concerns** — not relevant here; this letter has no unit data at all, which is itself the tell. ## Themes malaria · malaria-smear · MALARIA-RECURRENCE-1946 · POST-WAR-HOSPITAL · DATE-FLAG-1946-vs-1945 · veteran-not-soldier · civilian-stamp-no-return-address · newport-ri-hospital · ward-p-18 · ambulance-ride · pawtucket-attleboro-mix-up · visiting-hours-wed-sat-sun · dont-be-worrying · came-home-then-the-war-followed-him · LATEST-LETTER-IN-CORPUS · MOM-INTERVIEW-CANDIDATE