Seventy-one years ago this week my dad, George Edwin Farrar, and the group of Stalag Luft IV prisoners of war with which he was on the forced march across Germany, were liberated by British soldiers. This is the 15-word message my dad sent home to notify his family that he was alive and was free.
In the fifteen words to which he was limited, it reads:
Dear Mother. Was liberated May Second. Am in good health. Will be home soon. Love, S/Sgt. George E. Farrar.
That same week, he penned a short letter home.
It reads:
Dearest Mother:
I guess you have heard through the government that I was liberated. I was liberated by the English May 2nd and have been treated very nice since. I should be home soon, and having some of the nice meals you fix. That I have dreamed of for all-most a year. Life was a bit hard here, but it is all over now. I have been on the road marching since Feb. 6th with very little food, but am not in bad condition. I hope that every-one at home are o.k. as I have been thinking of every-one each day. Tell Gene I hope he had a nice birthday, and I was thinking of him on that day.
I’ll sure have a lot of things to tell you when I get home, and I am really going to stay around home. I guess I’ll have to get a new watch when I return as I had to sell mine for bread when I was on the march.
I hope you can read this, as I am writing on an old German gas mask case, and it is a bit rough, so will close until I have a better chance to write.
Love to all,
Ed
I’m not certain when either of these posts were received by my dad’s family in Atlanta, Georgia, but in 1945, Mother’s Day was on May 13. If either arrived prior to that date, I’m sure it made for a very happy Mother’s Day for his mother, Raleigh May George Farrar.
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2016
The Arrowhead Club 