Dearest Letty: The World War II Love Letters of Sgt. Leland Duvall

POSTSCRIPT

P O S T S C R I P T Leland Duvall was separated from the army on October , , at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. His train arrived at Russellville the next day. Letty Jones was on the platform to meet him and allowed the public kiss that he had insisted upon.They were married two weeks later. Upon his retirement in  at the age of seventy-nine, they returned to Crow Mountain, where he built a cottage down the road from her family homestead. There he wrote three novels and packed them away, and she painted. He died there February , . Letty moved from the mountain in the spring of  to the Wildflower Retirement Residence at Russellville, where she lives. 3-DUVALL_final_pages:Layout 1 9/16/11 10:34 AM Page 305 3-DUVALL_final_pages:Layout 1 9/16/11 10:34 AM Page 306 LELAND DUVALL was a member of the th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron from  to . After the war, he pursued a career in journalism and wrote for several Arkansas newspapers, including the Arkansas Gazette. ERNIE DUMAS is a columnist for the Arkansas Times and former associate editor and reporter for the Arkansas Gazette. He is the editor of The Clintons of Arkansas and cowriter with Tom Glaze of Waiting for the Cemetery Vote. 3-DUVALL_final_pages:Layout 1 9/16/11 10:34 AM Page 307 3-DUVALL_final_pages:Layout 1 9/16/11 10:34 AM Page 308 3-DUVALL_final_pages:Layout 1 9/16/11 10:34 AM Page 309 3-DUVALL_final_pages:Layout 1 9/16/11 10:34 AM Page 310 DearestLetty The World War II Love Letters of Sgt. Leland Duvall Edited by Ernie Dumas Dearest Letty Duvall Arkansas Leland Duvall was a now-and-again farm worker with a grade-school education when he received his World War II draft notice at his father’s farm near Moreland, Arkansas, in March 1942. He departed for training in California, where he began to write to Letty Jones,a Pottsville girl he’d had a crush on for several years. From the first correspondence through the end of the war, Leland sent Letty a torrent of letters, hundreds of careful and undeniably heartfelt missives—utterly tender but never sentimental , reliably charming and gently humorous —written daily from desert sands, pup tents, hospital beds, armored cars, and bombed-out buildings.That Duvall’s writing is a tour de force of wit, elegance, and erudition is all the more poignant because he was a man who was almost entirely self-taught. The letters, discovered by Duvall’s daughter after his death,are here enriched by his longtime friend and colleague Ernie Dumas, who provides facts about where Duvall was and the perils he endured while penning his letters, information that was often missing in dispatches that were necessarily censored and always guided by Duvall’s effort not to bore or worry his “dearest Letty.” Duvall’s lively intelligence and obvious joy in writing come through on every page, joining the patina of the era and the warm glow of a timeless love affair. Leland Duvall was a member of the 85th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron from 1942 to 1945. After the war,he pursued a career in journalism and wrote for several Arkansas newspapers, including the Arkansas Gazette. Ernie Dumas is a columnist for the ArkansasTimes and former associate editor and reporter for the Arkansas Gazette. He is the editor of The Clintons of Arkansas and coauthor with Tom Glaze of Waiting for the Cemetery Vote (University of Arkansas Press). Cover image credit: Photos of Leland Duvall and Letty Jones from the 1940s courtesy of Letty Duvall. Cover design: Katy Henriksen World War II / Memoir “In these funny, touching love letters from Leland Duvall to his wife-to-be, we meet the future brilliant explainer of everything from Arkansas agriculture to international economics when he was still a young country boy educating himself, teaching himself to write, and, in his spare time, casually becoming a hero in World War II.” —William Whitworth, editor emeritus, The Atlantic Monthly “The beautiful and poignant wartime letters of Leland Duvall are utterly fascinating.They are all the more remarkable for their serenity, for the daunting conditions under which they were written , and for Duvall’s meager preparation—an eighth-grade education...