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 1822 -
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| Name |
Ryland Wells |
| Born |
c 1822 |
Pittsylvania County, Virginia  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Person ID |
I12831 |
Devin Timber |
| Last Modified |
19 Feb 2012 |
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| Sources |
- [S67727] Mary Frances Reynolds Eggleston.
Mr. and Mrs. Wells who live on Route No. 2 have given three sons to the service. Two of them are nineteen-year-old twins who had never been separated and who betrayed all of the manifestations of affinity and attachment which often is betrayed by twins.
Then the draft came along and picked up the brothers and inducted them the same day. Their only plea was that they be permitted to perform their war service together and they would not be separated. But the induction brass hats could not see it that way, and their pleas were resisted. Robert Wells was assigned to Camp Shelby, Miss., and Ryland Wells was assigned to Plattsburg, N. Y.
Their letters home were brave and assumed a guise of cheerfulness, but the intuitions of a mother told her that he boys, never before separated, were suffering from the dejection of isolation and that service with the forces was not as happy as it would be if they were together.
Mrs. Wells realized her difficulties in effecting a remedy and the, one day, she hitched her wagon to a star, sat down and wrote to the commander-in-chief and asked him if there was anything that he could do about it.
Mr. Roosevelt answered the letter promptly and told Mrs. Wells that he had referred the case of her boys to the War Department with the personal recommendation that the twins be reunited. The President saw a question of morale in their plight and he possessed the human sympathy of a father who himself has boys on the fighting front.
Nor was it long before Private Robert Wells was paraded one day before his commanding officer and was told that he had been reassigned. He was handed travel orders sending him to Plattsburg. Arriving there, he was assigned to the same company in which his brother was serving in an engineering outfit.
Then they sailed together and are now at a point in North Africa.
They wrote home the other day separate letters each one relating that the twins now have a corporal?s stripes and are moving along together in promotion.
They are happier than they were when they first entered the army and they tell their parents not to worry over them and that they hope before long to be home to enjoy the comforts of peaceful life once more. The third brother, Carlton A. Wells is in service, somewhere in England.
Mrs. Wells treasures the letter of the commander-in-chief because it brought her a happy issue out of her affliction. It gave her renewed faith in the processes of democracy and realization that the President of the United States is not immured in an ivory tower, but can be reached directly by the people and that he made a personal issue of a war mother?s distress case.
Answer to a Mother?s Plea
(Transcription of original letter)
The White House
Washington
April 6, 1943
My dear Mrs. Wells:
In acknowledging the receipt of your letter of March thirtieth, I want you to know that, by the President?s direction, the matter about which you write is being brought to the attention of the appropriate officials of the War Department.
Very sincerely yours,
Edwin M. Watson
Major General, U. S. Army
Secretary to the President
Mrs. L. S. Wells,
805 Princeton Street,
Martinsville, Virginia
Letter from a Commanding Officer to a War Mother
July 1944
From 2nd Lieut. George A. Worth (England) to Mrs. L. S. Wells (Martinsville)
I am your sons platoon commander. Thought a few words to their mother would help convey the pride I feel in your two boys?So far I?ve been able to keep them together, in the same squad, one the leader and the other the assistant. They are a good team, too. I only wish I had all my men as young, capable, and willing to do a hard job day or night as your boys?They haven?t any idea of this letter. Today we are resting. Both are in good health, tanned as Indians, toughened for the big job ahead (the letter was written before the invasion in which they are now participating) and doing excellent on their jobs now. You have reason to be proud of Robert and Ryland?Incidentally, even after a year I still get them mixed up.?
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