Content Description

Nineteen letters with envelopes, and seven Christmas cards. This group of letters are primarily addressed to Reginald E. Barnett. Other addressees are Gwendolyn Barnett and Mrs. John W. Barnett. With two exceptions, letters to Reginald are from women with whom he had relationships.

Scope and Contents Primarily this is a collection of love letters written between 1942-1944 to Gertha Barbara Jean Sykes residing in St. Louis, Missouri and James NMI Dansby, an African-American soldier in the United States Army. There are also letters from two other Army soldiers, Jack Smith, stationed in the Pacific and Benjamin D. Collins, an aircompany soldier, whom Sykes married in 1949. The letters begin when Dansby joined the Army and started basic training in Camp Shelby, Hattiesburg,...