Write Soon, Love Fran

Write Soon, Love Fran chronicles the life of Corporal Frances Bushey, a cook in the Women’s Army Corps from 1949 to 1951.  Using the letters that Corporal Bushey wrote home to her mother, L.E. Starks paints a vivid picture of what life was like for a young woman from New Hampshire going through Army training at the time.

The majority of the book consists of letters Corporal Bushey wrote while attending basic training at Camp Lee, Virginia and cooking school at Fort Meade, Maryland.  She served as a cook at Camp Lee for ten months and in Okinawa, Japan for three months before being honorably discharged.  The author, Corporal Bushey’s daughter-in-law, takes great care in transcribing her letters and provides some clarifying commentary throughout the book and fifteen pictures at the end of the book.

Corporal Bushey’s letters are filled with the daily concerns of a young recruit and her conversational writing style quickly pulls one in. It’s a shame that there are so few letters home from her assignment to Okinawa.  Despite that, this book will appeal to anyone looking for a first-person account of the frustrations, romances, and daily challenges of life for a young recruit at the time.