Mark Clark, Allied commander in Italy during World War II. Babe wrote of one of the enclosed photographs, "I have duplicated (Clark's) pose as near as possible, but the stars are still lacking."

Dated April 4, 1944; possibly postmarked April 8, but it is difficult to read.

Dear Folks,

I am well, happy and safe and I hope you all are the same.

Of course, the first thing that will attract your attention is the pictures. You must remember that these pictures were taken under adverse conditions and that a few Italians came in selling eggs and nuts. Now we got the eggs and nuts.

To get back to the pictures, you’ve undoubtedly seen the Marx Brothers. In picture No. one, you are looking at three of their brothers’ doubles. I know you’ve seen the original brothers in more comical poses, but only on rare occasions could we manage a more distressed appearance.

Now study picture number two and you have the last step of “The Tired Woodchoppers Ballet,” a truly magnificent piece.

Thus we come to picture number three. If you have never seen Lt. General Mark Clark, you are now admiring his picture. I have duplicated his pose as near as possible, but the stars are still lacking.

Picture number four represents the end of a hard working day. Notice the drop of the shoulders and the relaxed feet.

No. 5 calls for no comment whatsoever.

The camera used was about twenty five or thirty years old and it looked as if it would fall apart any minute. He used no film, but used ordinary print paper instead, then when he developed that picture, he took another picture of the picture and these are what came out.

The white paper is German Agfa paper and the yellow one is Italian paper.

Some more Italians came in with more eggs, which we gently deprived them of. Outside of the family I told you about before, I don’t believe there is another family in Italy where at least one of the family is out to gyp all they can out of the soldiers. Outside of gyping all the Italians we catch, we are peaceful, law-abiding citizens.

That’s all for now, folks.

Love & Kisses,

Babe

PDF: Missing Photographs: Marx Brothers, Mark Clark and ‘Woodchoppers’

A 15-year-old boy with a year of high school behind him named Frank Mauro answered the door, then answered Eisberg’s questions. Of course, this is all speculation based on what I glean from the handwritten ledger sheet I found among the Census Bureau’s recently released 1940 census records.

The records show Babe was the one who answered the enumerator’s questions, which is why I speculated that the encounter happened in the afternoon, after school. The ledger lists the five members of the family at the time: My grandfather Frank; grandmother Florence, 16-year-old Vince; 15-year-old Babe; and 13-year-old Bib, my Uncle Bob. My grandmother was very pregnant at the time; she would give birth to a daughter named Rosemarie — my mother — about six weeks later.

The most stunning piece of information I saw in the census data was my grandfather’s income. Frank Mauro’s occupation was listed as an “agent for union,” working for the American Federation of Labor, and the ledger listed his 1939 annual income at $810. That number stopped me in my tracks.

To back up a bit, the 1940 census was the first to include a question about income, just one among the 81 questions census-takers asked at the time. The income question was apparently controversial at the time, but I’m glad it was asked, because I learned something I would not have realized.

In 1950, a man named Herman P. Miller, from the Census Bureau, wrote a study of wage distribution and earnings that drew on data from the 1940 census and other sources. It confirmed what I saw in my grandfather’s income, and what I could hardly believe: Yes, my grandfather earned in a year what the average wage-earner made in a week in 2010.

“In 1939 the average wage earner received about $800 during the entire year,” Miller wrote. In fact, 60 percent of American’s made less than $1,000 in 1939.

This is a link to a .jpg of the census ledger sheet including Babe’s family. As long as I was looking, I also pulled up and kept the ledger sheet for my father’s side of my family, which show’s that my paternal grandfather, Bill Greenbaum, was a milkman who earned $1,300 in 1939 — well above the average, apparently!

I have no other photographs of Babe.

The next letter I will transcribe is something of a capper to a series of letters that have all mentioned photographs. Babe asks for photos of his family. His family, apparently, has asked repeatedly for Babe to send home photos of him. They have even made some sort of “threat” to go around Babe, possibly, and seek photos from other sources. It’s hard to tell.

But this next letter actually had some photographs in it — five of them.

Babe will describe each of them, and they all seem to be in a silly or humorous vein. The photographs didn’t survive along with the other letters, however. I don’t have them and as far as I know, nobody does.

In fact, the more I work through these letters, the more amazed I am that virtually no photographs of Babe exist beyond the one that appears on this page. I wrote long ago about how that photograph had gained something like iconic status in my mind, as it held a prominent position in my grandmother’s house all the years we would visit her.

In this day of instant photography, when everyone carries a camera phone and the silliest of life’s moments are cause for a gallery on Facebook, it’s hard to imagine a time when a photograph would be so precious.

But that photograph in the upper right side of this page is it. My mother inherited so many of the keepsakes from my grandmother when she died — things like these letters, his ribbons, badges and patches, for example — that if there were any other photographs of Babe, I would think I’d have known about them by now.

None of my mother’s family is left anymore. I have an aunt who was married to my Uncle Bob (known in these letters as “Bib“). I can consult her, but again, I’d have thought by now any other photos of Babe would have come to light. I also have some cousins — the children of my Uncle Vin — that I could consult. But I’m skeptical they’d have anything.

It's getting to be pretty hard to illustrate some of these very short letters. He really, really wants a cigarette lighter.

Dated March 25, 1944; postmarked April 7.

Dear Folks,

I am well, happy and safe and I hope you all are the same.

The weather has been pretty good around here lately, but I see where you are having it pretty rough back there.

Did you get the package I sent home yet?

In case I didn’t tell you, I took some pictures the other day, but I haven’t had them developed yet. I mean the other fellow hasn’t had them developed yet. They were his film and camera.

When you send the cigarette lighter, don’t forget the fluid and plenty of flint.

Love & Kisses,

Babe

PDF: ‘The Weather Has Been Pretty Good Around Here Lately’

Babe's been asking for a cigarette lighter for several letters now.

Dated March 23, 1944; postmarked April 4.

Dear Folks,

I received a couple of letters from you all today and was happy to hear from you.

I don’t think I told you yet that I received three packages a few days ago. I really enjoyed what was in them. I smoked the pipe about twice and now I can’t find it anymore. One of these Italians probably stole it. They steal everything they lay their hands on. I’ve gotten so I hate the site of them and I never give them anything anymore like I used to. As a matter of fact, I’m waiting to catch one of them red-handed so I can beat his head off.

Love & Kisses,

Babe

PDF: ‘Waiting to Catch One of Them…So I Can Beat His Head Off’

Dated March 7, 1944; postmarked March 18.

Dear Folks,

I am well, happy and safe and I hope you all are the same.

I received a letter yesterday dated Feb. 24, which is pretty good service, I also received one from Aunt Mary dated Feb. 4, which is poor service.

I haven’t received any of the second batch of packages, but I ought to be getting them any day now.

In the letter from Aunt Mary was a picture of them taken in So. Orange. If she wants to send me something so badly let her send me either the lighter or camera. Tell her a letter is on the way.

L&K,

Babe

PDF: Received a Letter Dated Feb. 4, ‘Which is Poor Service’

Dated March 6,1944; postmarked March 17.

Dear Folks,

I am well, happy and safe and I hope you all are the same.

I haven’t received any of those packages yet, but I am still patiently waiting.

Send me some film size 616 and I’ll see what I can do about getting a picture for you. Then send me a camera (with film) and you will be sure of getting a picture of me. Don’t forget, you can’t take pictures without a camera. You can even send me a cigarette lighter with a lot of flint.

That’s all for now.

Love & Kisses

Babe

PDF: ‘Don’t Forget, You Can’t Take Pictures Without a Camera’

Dated Feb. 27, 1944; postmarked March 11.

Dear Folks,

I am well, happy and safe and I hope you all are the same.

I sent you a package yesterday and I hope you get it in good condition. I want you to let me know just how much you would pay for it if you were going to buy it. I want to find out how much it is really worth.

Today is Sunday, but I’m going to miss my macaroni dinner at Tony’s house. However, I shall make it up in a day or two when I see him again. That’s all for now.

Love & Kisses,

Babe

PDF: Package: How Much Would You Pay if You Were Going to Buy It?

Frank C. Walker, postmaster general of the United States during World War II.

If you have any doubts about how important mail delivery was during World War II, read the words of the then-postmaster general of the United States, Frank C. Walker: ”It is almost impossible to over-stress the importance of this mail. It is so essential to morale that army and navy officers of the highest rank list mail almost on a level with munitions and food.”

He wrote those words in an article in the Army and Navy Journal, an edition of the publication called “United States at War, December 7, 1942 | December 7, 1943″ (I haven’t been able to figure out when that edition was published). Lynn Heidelbaugh, a curator for the National Postal Museum, sent me the article, along with a few other items during our correspondence recently.

In the article, Walker details the efforts the government took in marrying the expertise of the Post Office Department and the U.S. Army and Navy. At the time he wrote this article, Walker said the department had 1,300 U.S. post offices serving army posts and camps in the United States, and 400 Army Post Offices functioning in more than 50 foreign countries. Additionally, the U.S. Navy had postal facilities on ships and at shore stations in 2,000 locations.

Here is more from the article, headlined “The Postal Service at War,” quoted directly:

An example may make clear just where it is that the Post Office Department withdraws from the picture and the military authorities assume control. Mrs. Richard Roe, in Chicago, knows that her son is overseas, but is not sure just where he is stationed.

She addresses her letter as follows: “Private William D. Roe, 32,000,000; Company F, 167th Infantry, APO 810, c/o Postmaster, New York, N.Y.,” and drops it in a mail box. At the Chicago post office, it is canceled, sorted, and tied in a package of letters labeled “New York, N.Y.–Military Mail.”

Still under the Post Office Department’s immediate control, it arrives at the New York Post Office’s Postal Concentration center, a great building whose entire facilities and hundreds of workers are engaged exclusively in the final processing of the mall before it is handed over to the military authorities.

The package goes through sorting processes for separations according to the branch of the service, such as Infantry or Field Artillery, and secondly according to the Company or similar designation. Finally, Mrs. Roe’s letter is placed in a package of mail for members of Company F, 167th Infantry. The package then goes in a mail bag to the New York Port of Embarkation Army Post Office. It is here that the Army assumes control.

The Army knows where Company F is located; we do not. Private Roe’s letter goes by ship or plane to the overseas A.P.O. through which Company F gets its mail. The package is handed to the mail orderly of Company F and he delivers the letter to Bill Roe. If Bill has been transferred, or if he is in a hospital, the Army Directory Service furnishes the new address and the letter is re-dispatched or re-sorted for delivery at the new location. When letters are misdirected, long delays occur. Ship sinkings have meant the loss of many thousands of letters.

Mrs. Roe’s letter to Bill is one of approximately five billion which go to and from the armed forces in a year. For the happiness of Mrs. Roe and the millions like her and for the fighting efficiency of Bill Roe and the millions like him, that mail must be handled with speed and efficiency.

Dated Feb. 29, 1944; second of two V-mail letters in an envelope postmarked March 6.

Dear Folks,

I am well, happy and safe and I hope you all are the same.

I just finished writing to Mr. Morgan, so let me know if he gets it.

My next letter will have to be to Vince, so tell him it’s coming.

I haven’t received any of the second batch of packages yet. I hope you put a lot of filters in the packages with the pipe because I won’t be able to get any here.

That’s all for now. Give my love to all including Spring Street.

Love & Kisses,

Babe

PDF: A Quick Note about Packages, Letters and His Pipe