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SWEETHEART MINE: WORLD WAR I LOVE LETTERS

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Personal letters allow us to uncover the past in ways that other sources cannot. Personal Letters serve as a source that tell us about someone's personal life, their daily activities, and important life events that they wanted to share with someone close to them.

Documenting their lives through personal letters, Home Dahringer and Westley Dyer sent letters to two Waukegan women, Ruth Besley and Elizabeth Tarver. For Dahringer and Besley, their relationship developing from high school through college is revealed. For Dyer and Tarver, a chance encounter during the spring of 1918 brings them together. These correspondences uncover how these two men faced their entry into the First World War, and highlight the importance of having someone back at home to send love.