An Intern’s Perspective: Letters to Mary A. McLeod
As both a history and anthropology major, I’ve spent hundreds of hours studying the past. However, during my time as an intern in the Manuscripts & Digital Curation Department, working with these collections felt like being transported to the past when they were created. The first time this happened was with the John and Mary McLeod Grier Family World War II Collection. I had a relatively straightforward task of relabeling the files, and the stories held within made the task even more interesting. When I started working, I was no longer on the fourth floor of Joyner; I was sitting at the table with Mary McLeod in 1940’s South Carolina. Within this collection is the story of the McLeod Grier family: Mary McLeod, Lieutenant John D. Grier, and Private First-Class James C. Grier, and their experiences during World War Two. However, there is a fourth individual, unrelated to the McLeod Grier family, whose story is also contained within.
The first part of the collection consists of letters written to Mary McLeod from soldiers across the world during her time as a USO volunteer from 1942 to 1945. One soldier who wrote to Mary often was Lieutenant Raymond L. Dennis. Lieutenant Dennis served in both the 608th Quartermaster Graves Registration Company (tasked to identify and bury the bodies of soldiers) and the 9th Infantry Division’s Quartermaster Company. In many of his letters, he opens by apologizing to Mary, saying that he didn’t have much time to write these letters. Despite this, Dennis made sure to write to Mary. In one of my favorite letters to Mary, he describes the move he and his fellow soldiers were doing as “Packing, convoys, shuffling, dust and dirt (or rain a & hail), cussin’ and discussin.”
Correspondence from Raymond L. Dennis R to Mary A. McLeod, April 25, 1945. Item from John and Mary McLeod Grier Family World War II Collection (#1099) East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
While relabeling the folders and briefly reviewing the collection’s contents, I had come up with a rough idea of what I thought Raymond Dennis looked like: a weathered veteran, perhaps an older man who had already experienced war before. Towards the end of the relabeling, I came across a photo of Dennis, and he was the opposite of what I imagined him to look like. He was a younger man with glasses who looked a bit nerdy. His photo initially shocked me, with him looking like someone I would see on campus or in a class. However, once I thought a bit deeper, it made sense. World War II was a war fought by everyone, including young ordinary people like Raymond Dennis.
Raymond L. Dennis, photograph undated. Item from John and Mary McLeod Grier Family World War II Collection (#1099) East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.
The John and Mary McLeod Grier Family World War II Collection provides the stories and contributions that individuals made during World War II. From Mary McLeod’s support as a USO volunteer, John and James Grier’s experiences while serving, to Raymond Dennis’ relatable story of a young man fighting in a global war. This collection shows that history is not just the dates and names of large players in the war; it was a war fought and won by everyone.