Series 1 Oliver McNaughton

[Envelope] Miss Nettie McNaughton 400 Forest Ave., Buffalo, N. Y.

C. Company 135th Batt. Parkhill [illegible word] Jan. 16, '16

Dear Sister

Your welcome letter arrived and I was certainly glad to get it. I was kind of glad you had decided to come home, for I think you certainly struck the right note. Also, you have made a break into institutional work and know the working of them and that knowledge will always be a great use to you. But I want to tell you you are wanted at home. I think you are needed there; but putting that aside, I know you are wanted there. Father never

[sideways left margin] P.S. Am out of envelopes. Borrowed this.

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says much, but I was working with him all last summer and if he doesn't feel your absence as much as any one, my name isn't McNaughton. Father is gruff but he is a very emotional man, but considers it a sign of weakness to show any signs of it and so he goes to other extremes. He even gets mad at everything in general in order to relieve his feelings. I have had many a laugh to myself, for if I say it myself, I think I understand father better than any of you. His ideas, of course, are old fashioned, and so will yours when you are his age and so is everybody's.

Page 3 My handkerchiefs arrived the other day. I wonder where they found them. I have not been home since; I would have gone this weekend but the Colonel of the Battalion came to inspect us yesterday, and our chaplain to preach to us to-day, and so no week-end passes were allowed. The Chaplain is certainly some speaker; he is a former presbyterian minister of Parkhill.

We had our first route march last week, when we marched to Beechwood and back, a total distance of twenty-one miles. I felt fine, but it got some of them. There is nothing at Beechwood but a Presbyterian church and an

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I.O.F Hall. The ladies had some feed prepared for us. Instead of feeding one hundred men, they had enough for five Hundred. It is the nicest country church I ever saw, and is clear of the debt. We got a few recruits there.

Next week we march to Greenway - the return trip being sixteen miles. The English Church at Greenway feeds us. We expect to get a number of recruits there. An ancient grudge exists between Greenway and Parkhill, so tact will be necessary.

Last Wednesday night The Catholic Church here gave us a smoker in the town hall, and also a concert, and a swell lunch. We certainly had a fine time.