Ansel Greenley, WWI Vet, part 2

In a post from July, I wrote about my grandfather's service during World War I.  You can read it here: Ansel Greenley, WW I Veteran.  It looks like my grandfather was quite the ladies man in his day.  He kept a collection of letters from that time, most of them from women who wrote to him while he was in the service.

 One of the letters, dated Oct. 18, 1917, is written by Ansel to his mother.  (The link will take you to a copy of this letter.)  The other letters are to Ansel, from various women.  One of the women, Grace, is his girlfriend.  Another woman, Ella, also writes to him regularly.  From the letters I can tell that Grace, Ella and Ansel were all friends from Wagon Mound, New Mexcio.

In the letter he wrote to his mother, he is in San Franscico, waiting to hear what he will be doing next. In the letter, he fully expects to serve in the Navy four years.  His actual service was less than two years. (Enlisted June 1917 - discharge January 1919).  The war ended Nov. 1918. I wondered why he didn't have to serve his full four years, and found that the war department didn't want to keep such large military after the war ended - so they released men from their service early. His father's death in Sept. 1918 may have been a factor in his early release also.

One passage from his letter to his mother I found particularly interesting:

"I have not wrote to Grace for about a month guess she thinks it is time to get a new man. Well I hope she has good luck. I am getting along fine. I have found out which one of the girls thinks enough of me to write anyway. But then I never met a girl that would wait four years for me so I sould worry. Four years is a long time for the most of them. If it was not for getting a little mail once in a while I would quit them all except the one that writes the most and it might be best do do that anyway." (sic- I did some minor editing to assist readers.  Editing included adding punctuation and capitalization)

Grace Seely, Ansel's girl friend during war

From that quote you get the sense he is not completely committed to his girl friend, Grace.  Grace's letters are beautifully written. She is a teacher/principal in Wagon Mound.

Letter from Grace

In her letters it interesting to read about life was like in 1918. She writes of her father's purchase of their first car and visiting Ansel's family. In one letter, she is visiting her grandparents in Des Moines, Iowa.  Her grandfather, obviously wealthy, has a chauffeur that drives them around the countryside. She also talks of the noise from all the cars in the city. This romance lasted throughout the war and for awhile after Ansel returned home.  From other letters, I know they were no longer a couple in April of 1920 when Ansel meets Mary Maddux.

One other woman, Ella Kronig, writes regularly also. Her letters are harder to read (not as nice penmanship - and like my grandfather, has difficulty with spelling!) But her big personality comes through.  From her letters, Grace is quite jealous of Ella and the friendship she has with Ansel.  

There are also cards from other women included in this set of letters.  Two different women from New York send cards to Ansel.  And then there is this picture:

Ansel Greenley and unknown woman

There are about four pictures like this in my grandfather's stuff.  Different men are all photographed with this woman on their lap.  From other letters (from shipmates) it looks like they had these pictures taken after the war was over, and before they went home.