History
Learn more about the book "Marcel's Letters" and the font P22 Marcel Script, which is based on the handwriting of conscripted WWII laborer Marcel Heuzé
Carolyn Porter, Marcel Heuzé, Marcel's Letters, Handwritten Letters, World War II, P22 Marcel, Typography, Love Story, Reunion, Daimler, Berlin, Marienfelde, STO, Forced Labor, Service du Travail Obligatoire, WWII
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Join me! Smithsonian National Postal Museum Postmarks & Paperbacks online book club: September 13, 2021

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. (I mean really—how fun was that email to get?!)

I am ridiculously honored to learn they chose ‘Marcel’s Letters’ for their September Postmarks & Paperbacks online book club. The book club meets virtually on September 13. The event is totally free but you have to claim a spot. JOIN ME!

Up Here… A 10th Mountain Soldier’s Letters Home 1943–1945

Earlier this year I received an email from a man named David Hoople, who was writing from his home in Maine. After reading Marcel’s Letters he was so struck by similarities in our stories that he felt compelled to reach out. “The parallels to my project were inspiring,” he wrote. David went on to explain he had been transcribing the letters his father, Ted, mailed home while serving in the 10th Mountain Division during WWII. Similar to my search for information on Marcel, David’s journey to understand his father’s experience involved carefully piecing together information from handwritten letters, a trip abroad, and a remarkable encounter at the top of Mt. Croce—one of those goosebump-inducing moments that just might make you believe in divine meddling.READ MORE

19 Months in Quarantine: Louise Dillery’s Tuberculosis Story

Photos from Louise Dillery’s private collection.

“I’m bored.” Louise spells out the word for emphasis as she laughs: “B–O–R–E–D.” The remark does not come across as a complaint, just a statement of fact.

Louise Dillery is 94 years old. She understands why she can’t have in-person visitors or go out and get her hair done. She doesn’t feel compelled to break the rules. She knows the stakes of COVID-19 and what it will take to get through this. This is, after all, not the first time she’s been forced to stay inside: nearly seven decades ago, Louise spent 19 months quarantined inside St. Paul’s Ancker Hospital.READ MORE

A Return to Paris and Promises Kept

W A R N I N G :  B O O K  S P O I L E R S  A H E A D

Last year at the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) conference in Montreal (watch my talk here), I learned ATypI’s 2018 conference would be held in Antwerp, Belgium. After realizing Antwerp was an easy two-hour train ride from Paris, I realized I had found the perfect excuse to return to the City of Lights.

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Military Writers Society of America Book Review

This is Ms. Porter’s story as well as Marcel’s. She tells it honestly and with deep emotion. She manages to balance the several strands of her adventures—the history lessons, the details of creating a font, the inner workings of her marriage, and the clues that point to the eventual outcomes. The reader will rejoice with her when things go well and cry with her when she faces discouragement. It’s a great story.

– Carolyn Schriber, Military Writers Society of America

Read the full review here

“My father was friends with Marcel Heuzé”

Our conversation began with this astonishing claim: “My father was friends with Marcel Heuzé.”
(Cue the sound of a needle scratching across a record.)

Let me back up. Two weeks ago, I picked up my office phone to hear a 90-year-old woman with a crisp French accent state her name — Nelly Trocmé Hewett — followed by the astonishing claim her father had been friends with Marcel.READ MORE

December 26, 1944: “Somewhere in France”

12/26/44
Somewhere in France

My Dearest Wife:

Well Christmas is here an gone. It didn’t even seem like Christmas just like another day. Christmas Eve we didn’t get in till about six. After we ate I washed and shaved. Was [illegible due to paper damage] to a little party they were having over in his Co. Then we were going to go to midnight services. READ MORE

December 24, 1943: “I’ll say a prayer for the best little family in the world.”

24 December 1943

Dearest little Mother,

Just a short time ago we finished with morning (9 A.M.) sick call. I have had indications that today might be a very busy one so thought I’d better get off your daily letter early.

Tonight is Xmas eve and I can just see you hanging up a little pair of stockings by the chimney with care. What are you giving Mike for Xmas dear? Pretty hard to think of things for a little tyke like that isn’t it? Gosh I’d certainly like to be with you tonight. I will in spirit anyway, especially when I am in church tonight. I’ll say a prayer for the best little family in the world.READ MORE

December 22, 1942: “I wish I could put into words what I have in my heart.”

Dec. 22, 1942

Dearest Wilma:

Received two letters of yours, today. One written the 23rd of November, the other a v-mail letter written the 31st of August, the new and the old.

Don’t you ever change the way you have been writing your sweet letters! I’ll admit they just about knock me off my feet, but it’s just what I want to hear. I wish I could put into words what I have in my heart and mind, but I am afraid I would make a mess of it. Perhaps you’ll remember some of [the] things I told you a long time ago. It all goes double, now.READ MORE

October 13, 1944: “…I do love & miss you & pray that we will be together soon…”

October 13, 1944
France

Darling Marie,

I’m enclosing a few lines to let you know that I’m still in the best of health & also pray to hear the same from you, my [loved] one. Today I’m going to answer a few of your letters dated Sept. 19th, 20th & 26th. Before I start, I want you to know it is really cold out here where I am & I understand it is also cold back home. Oh well, I guess there isn’t anything I could do about it.

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Interview with Ann Marie Ackerman, author of Death of an Assassin

 

CP: Congratulations on the release of “Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee” (Sept 1. 2017, Kent State University Press). This fascinating story would have been entirely lost to time if you hadn’t put together these German and American puzzle pieces — congratulations! Tell us a bit about the mystery you solved:

AMA: Thank you, Carolyn! Actually, it was two mysteries, one on each continent.READ MORE

OTD August 6, 1944: The Daimler-Marienfelde factory was bombed

Library of Congress image USZ62-59134
Upper left: Before; Center: During. Lower right: After.

On this day seventy-three years ago, eighty-three Army Air Force B-17 bombers targeted Daimler’s Marienfelde factory. “The bombing is very effective,” the mission record stated, “and ten major [targets] are severely damaged during one of the best days that the Eighth [Air Force] experiences.”

If you’ve read “Marcel’s Letters,” you’ll know I scoured military mission records to find out how and when the factory where Marcel worked had been bombed. If you have the book, you can read the passage about the search—and this specific bombing raid—on pages 109–112. The photo above is first referenced at the bottom of page 110.