Soldierly Devotion
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It was March 1918--Frank Watts was married to Belle Shoemaker. The couple began to make plans for their modest, quiet life together on a farm in central Missouri. But with the drums of war beating loudly in Europe, Frank was netted by the ubiquitous draft three months later and shipped to Camp Pike, Arkansas to begin training as a soldier in the American Expeditionary Forces. Throughout the months he spent training and preparing for deployment overseas, to his arrival in Europe and months spent as part of the occupational forces in Luxembourg, Frank and Belle devotedly wrote to one another. The couple left behind dozens of letters which chronicle one of the most dynamic and tumultous times in the modern annals of American history. This book is a collection of their correspondence, drawing the reader into the struggles faced by a couple separated by war and saddled with the uncertainty of whether they would once again meet on earth. Their writings serve as an introduction to the impact the "Great War" had on rural communities and brings the reader face-to-face with the "Soldierly Devotion" one Missouri farmer maintained for his "darling wife" even under the most dismal circumstances.