Letter from Clarence Williams to Gretchen Williams, October 15, 1945
- Date
- Creator
- Williams, Clarence
- Format
- letter
- Category
- Stories
- Subcategory
- Clarence Williams
- Repository
- Institute for Holocaust Education
- Collection
- Clarence Williams Collection
- Bibliographic ID
- Folder 24, Item b
- People
- Bracken, Eddie, 1915-2002
- Miller, Irving
- Williams, Gretchen
- Daley, Cass 1915-1975
- Jessen
- Lupa, Dan
- Williams, Clarence
- Data URI
- soh.sto002.00231.xml
- Sender(s)
- Williams, Clarence
- Sent from
- Hallein, Austria
- Recipient(s)
- Williams, Gretchen
Hallein, Austria15 October 45.
Dearest Gretchen —
Honey I was a bad boy again yesterday when I didn’t get a letter written to you so will try and make up for it tonite by writing two. I believe I have enough things to write about now that I can write two with some news in each.
To begin with, I really had a full
day yesterday. Being Sunday and a day
off, Jessen and I took off right after
dinner, with our cameras, to see some
of Salzburg. We hitched a ride in and
went up and down and then toured
the castle. We were fortunate in running
into a group tour so tagged along with
the guide. The castle is very well preserved
inside considering much of it was
constructed in 1077, quite a few years
ago. We saw the torture room including
the stone blocks and chains plus the
stocks where their hands and legs were
locked thru a piece of wood. Below this
room was a hugh dungeon with the
only entrance being steel bar doors in
the floor of the torture room. From the
tower of the castle one can see many
miles in every direction and the countryside
is really beautiful. The weather
here is much like late October and
the trees on the mountain sides are
every color imaginable. The atmosphere
was very hazy making it difficult to
pick out objects a great distance away
however I took the full roll of pictures
and hope at least some of them turn
out good. I even had Jessen take a
couple of me since you asked for
more of my puss. I got a kick out of
watching the cable cars work, there is
no power connected of any kind. There
are two cars and one goes up while
the other comes down. Each car has
a hugh water tank in the bottom and
they fill the tank on the car at the top
and the extra weight pulls the
other car up then when it reaches
bottom, the water is drained out. Very
clever, these Austrians. After leaving the
castle we walked on the mountain road
through a park up above the city. I
think we must have walked about
five miles and when we finally arrived
at the Red Cross I was completely worn
out. We had doughnuts and coffee for
supper and then planned to see the
stage show at the “Playhouse”. It was
the girls from “Billy Rose’s Diamond Horse
Shoe” but the line, rather two lines, each
over 3 blocks long gathered an hour before
the show was to start so we decided to
come in another evening. While at the
Red Cross we ran onto Lupa, Miller and
3 other boys who had come in with a
jeep so all of us decided to pile in
the jeep (7 altogether) ride over and see
the show at the Roxy. It was an excellent
comedy, the name, “Out of This World”
with Eddie Bracken, Cass Doley and
many other stars. It was about 10:30
when we arrived back in Hallein and
I was so tired and worn out I went
to bed immediately. I enjoyed the outing
a lot and hope we have a few more
nice days before the snow flies, for
similar expeditions.
Well darling I will close this and start another as I still have several things to write about.
All My Love Honey, Clarence.