Mary Ann Chapman's Story    Part 4   34







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so I could remember to tell him. We all enjoyed her so much. The things that happened at home were what we had to tell him & that was what he wanted to hear. Once he asked for a picture of a rose, he saw so much to make him sad. Once he woke in the morning & found he had been sleeping with dead oxen. Being one who drove the 2 wheeled carts of France he had to tend the horses, that pleased him. Being a farm boy, that is what they gave him to do, to take the food up to the front lines. Often he stopped his cart under the big cannon that were tilted up & shot 20 miles. The horse didn't mind the noise, stood still through it all. He told us this after he came home & how the enemy bombed the road he had to be on to get water or take food to the front. One fell at his feet but didn't go off. One morning a friend said to him 'Let me hold your hand for you are not afraid' but Forest said only a fool wouldn't be afraid with so much danger. That young man who wanted to take his hand was killed that day. Forest told us many things after he got home that he didn't write. One letter he said Why don't you write? He wasn't getting any letters. He had been moved & letters hadn't caught up with him. When he did get the letters he said he knew we hadn't forgotten him. We surely didn't & prayed continually for him. One day Daisy said 'Mamma smile.' I guess I didn't smile as I should for the rest of them when my heart was so full of prayer for my Forest in all that danger. After that I tried to smile more for the others. One letter Forest wrote


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after the war was over, he said I am keeping myself pure. We were so thankful for that because some of our Mormon boys didn't & it hurt him very deeply when he came home & took a lovely girl out & was in love with her, when he asked her father for her the father said No that his daughter was too good for a soldier for he didn't think any of them kept pure. That girl married a man who hadn't gone to the war but he was not true. That hurt Forest badly. After a few trials he did find a lovely girl for a wife. Our dear friends of Richville, the Neilsons, our nearest neighbors had 2 lovely girls Nellie Hugh's wife & May so Forest married May. Brother Neilson being a good man himself believed Forest to be good. The time Forest was in the Army of Occupation in Germany our Soldiers were taken into the German homes. Forest saw that the people didn't want war & were so glad when it was over like we were & the German girls wanted the soldiers to marry them & bring them to America. Forest didn't want a German girl nor to get into sin with them. Guy Richey, Forest's cousin, Ben's son, was in service when Forest was. Sometimes that family would come over to see us & we would hold meetings together & pray for our boys, but we had our Sunday School meetings together in the valley. With Forest driving a cart to the front lines with food he didn't have to fire a shot & has always been thankful. It was a very happy time for us when he came home, we were so thankful he was spared to us.