MORE MAIL FROM UNCLE OSCAR

After the publication of my book Letters to Vimy in the spring of 2017, more correspondence from Pte. Oscar French has continued to surface. Maybe that was inevitable. It is almost as if the spirit of Uncle Oscar is still sitting in a trench in France, cranking out letters from a century ago.

I am transcribing these letters and will post them on this site as they become available. Pte. French was my uncle who died at Vimy Ridge on the morning of April 9, 1917. The letters contained here are real although they may be abridged; the book Letters to Vimy is a combination of reality and historical fiction, in which I respond from the 21st century to letters Uncle Oscar wrote to his mother (my grandmother). You can buy the entire book online through www.friesenpress.com/bookstore in traditional formats or as an e-book.

Here are additional letters available on this site. Click on the title of the letter to gain access.

• Apples from the Orchard. August, 1915, training at Niagara-on-the-Lake

• Postcards to My Father. Christmas, 1915

More in the works. Come back again.