Letter #11 December 18th, 1914 From Charley in France to his family in Canada

Letter #11 December 18th, written by Charley (stationed at the #2 Stationary Hosptial in France) to his Mom and Dad and younger sister just before Christmas 1914

December 18 1914

France

Dear Mother

          Being so late in the month it is impossible to reach you by time to wish you a merry Christmas but I can hope you have a Bright and prosperous New Year.  Hess said in his letter yesterday that she had sent me a ring for a present.  Well I hope you did not do anything so foolish as they may never reach here.

          Say mother I would like to send you my picture now.  It is in the army regulation that every body has to grow a moustache and you should see mine.  It is good and thick but the infernal thing is almost red where it was first coming on. It was the funniest feeling thing I ever had and bothered me awful.

          Things in general around here are just about the same.  Every little while there are patients coming in and going out.  The weather is getting damper just now as it is in the middle of the rainy season.

          Has Viceroy got a skating rink and a hockey team I think I will start in to Hockey when I go back.  There is no games or anything in the line of sport here as all the young men are fighting as well as old men. 

          At present the allies are doing nothing but what you will know long before this reaches you.  Had a letter from Aunt Rachie and she tells me things are pretty slow in Portage if they are worse than they were last summer they must be awful.  It is reported here that Canada is sending 25000 more men over the first of the year.  If things keeping coming the way they have been I can’t see the war will last very much longer “ Let us hope not,” A person just reading the papers cant imagine the amount of lives that this war is costing.

          Well Mother do you remember me saying that some day I would see Paris and London I guess I was about right.  I only wish that you and Pa and VV were all to live here for the winter months as it has Victoria all beat to pieces.       

          All the operations that our officers have performed so far have been successful I guess that is doing well for a Hospital this size and especially a military one.

          We have fourteen of those big motor ambulances with us.  They were supplied by the British Red Cross Society “How is that”.

          Be sure and tell me how VV made out in her exams at Christmas.  I guess they will be pretty stiff as a general rule they are almost as hard as the midsummer ones.

          Well Mother it is terribly hard to write a letter of interest, as we never get anywhere now that we are stationed.

Remember me to Pa and VV when you write

Chas

Meanwhile back in Canada life goes on ...

Letter #10 December 15th 1914, from No. 2 Stationary Hospital in Le Touquet, France

Letter #10 December 15th, 1914 from Charley to his Dad.  One of only two letters in the collection written to his Father.  From No. 2 Stationary Hospital in Le Touquet, France

Dec 15, 1914
France
 
Dear Dad
It is quite awhile since I have heard from you but if anything was wrong I guess mother would let me no.  Things are just about the same here as yet only a few Canadian troops are over and it is hard to say when the rest will be here.  There are 80 patients going out of the Hospital in a day or so, so you so wee are doing some good work anyways.
          For the last few days it has been raining nevertheless it is much better than snow.  Talking to the patients and they sure have some experiences but by letter I can not tell you them as it is forbidden.  They all seem to think that the war will be over some time this coming spring as the Germans are loosing with great loss.  
         In France the other day three women spies were caught giving news to the Germans.  Needless to mention what end they came to.  Nearly all business places are run by women here as all the men available are at the front.  The biggest part of France is under English military law run by military police.
          Yesterday we were issued with a lot of cigarettes and tobacco in each package was a post card with the senders name and address on it.  So it enables one to return the card to it’s sender thanking them for it.
          V-V will be back for her holidays before you get this and I hope she made out well in her exams.  I was very glad to hear she got first place in the monthly exams last month, as it is quite an honor to do that at College.
          Well Dad it makes it very hard to write an interesting letter as there are so many things I cannot tell you.  So I will get to work.  Hoping you and Mother are in good health and spirit.  Remember me to V-V when you write her and don’t forget to write yourself.
Affectionately
Chas
No 2 Stationary Hospital
First Can Exped Force
France

Letter #9 December 9th, 1914 from France (Le Touquet No 2 Stationary Hospital)

No. 2 Stationary Hospital in Le Touquet, France 1914

The Canadian unit named each of the hospital’s wards after Canadian provinces and the tents were named after major Canadian cities.

This is Letter # 9, December 9th 1914 From Charles Roy Bailey at the No 2 Stationary Hospital in France, to his Mother; Jennie Lloyd in Viceroy Saskatchewan.

Dec 9, 1914 France
Dear Mother

Received yours and VV’s letter today and I was very glad to get both. You were asking questions in them and some of them I cannot answer. The weather here is just like you have in Canada in September we go around in shirtsleeves and never even feel cold.

I had a letter today from Hess saying that she had cabled me to Salisbury Plains telling me that my letter had gone to the 10th Battalion and I did not even get the cable. You see we did not wait for the Canadians, as we were the first to leave for the front.

The Allies at present are making good progress. There was a Aero plane went over us today it was impossible to tell if it was English or not. However I think it was as it was flying very low. I heard from Ina the other day and by the way she wrote I thought that you must of thought I was dead. Well don’t fear. I am all right and just as safe as if I was home.

Was very glad to hear that Dad was feeling well, business was well. To see some of the businessmen of France it would make you laugh of course some of them are very clever but it seems as if nearly all the smaller businesses are carried on by elderly women, Hotels included. I hear that Bud is still going with Ina. What does Aunt Rachie say to that? I guess she still has no use for him, as he was too much of a sport to suit her. But I tell you Mother he is a better fellow and has a higher principal than some that she thinks OK. Say I have asked you to tell me something about the people in Viceroy. The young people, or are there any.

Well mother I will write often now that we have the hospital on running bases. This is the address that will find me quicker than any. Remembrance to Dad and VV when you write her

Bye Bye
Chas

No 2 Stationary Hospital,
First Can Exped Force
France

 

Letter #8, Nov 30th 1914 from France

Letter #8, Nov 30th 1914
From Charles Roy Bailey in France to his younger sister Vida Valerie Lloyd in Brandon Manitoba.

VV was in her first semester at Brandon College.  The same college Charley had graduated from a few years earlier. 
Born in 1899, VV was 15 years old when she started college. 

The photo of VV below I think would be from that era. 

When I was in my late teens, Grandma who was almost 80, confided in me that she had once dreamed of being an actress and of going to Hollywood. She told me she had a picture of Mary Pickford on her bedroom wall. Mary Pickford was Canadian.  Born in Toronto.  She was a legendary silent film actress seven years older than VV.



But it was not to be.  

VV (and Charley's) mother deemed the 'profession' unbecoming of a lady.  And there I was, 60 odd years later, working in theater, fully supported in following my heart. Thanks in no small part to the sacrifices of the generations before me. 

Here is Charley's letter from the No 2 Stationary Hospital in France in the first months of the Great War written to his sister in her first months of college back in Canada. In later letters Charley will dispense his own advice to his sister on her choice of occupation. 

 

Golf Hotel Du Touquet
Etaples (Pas-de-Calais)
Nov 30 /14

Dear Sister,

Well this is the first personal letter you have ever had from France. When you get threw college this is where you want to spend your vacation. It is a beautiful place, with old-fashioned buildings and the peasants are so old fashioned in costume and habits.

The men and women wear wooden shoes, the men great baggie trousers all red which are very tight around the ankle. The women have very short skirts about two and a half feet around the waist. 

Their draying is all done by wheeled carts 
drawn by a big horse, which is drove with one line. If I try to explain the peculiarity of the French it would take me a whole day so some day soon. I will send you a few photos or post cards that will explain much more fully than I can.

We have just got settled. The hospital we are occupying was previously a large tourist hotel. Beautifully situated half a mile from the sea surrounded on the other sides by golf links and fine trees. “To make a long story short” It is great.

We expect about two hundred patients tomorrow. That will mean get down to work. And the boys won’t be sorry as we have had nothing to do ever since leaving Canada.

Is any of my old supervisors teaching now or are they all retired. Christmas exams will be on by the time you receive this and I hope you all kinds of luck as I know that no matter how hard a person studies or how well they are up in their work exams will sometimes catch the best of them.

Say VV what kind of a place is Viceroy were there any young people there when you were up this fall. Father sent me a photo of the interior of the Hotel and it looked very nice. He also stated that it was going to be one of the best moneymakers of any of his hotels. Well VV six o’clock comes early and I expect a big days work tomorrow so don’t forget to write. Remember me to Father and Mother when you write hoping you all kinds of luck in your exams. I will say good night. My address you will find below.

Brother
Chas

CR Baily
No 2 Stationary Hospital
First Can Expeditionary Force France

Letter #7, November 23rd, 1914 from France

Letter #7 November 23rd, 1914.  
From Charles Roy Bailey in France to his Mother in Viceroy Saskatchewan, Canada. 

Charley's 7th letter home was written on some pretty nice stationary courtesy of the new home of the No 2. Stationary Hospital; the Golf-Hotel du Touquet.  In the 'War Story of the C.A.M.C.', Touquet is described as "the finest and best laid out golf course on the continent of Europe". The owner, Allan Stoneham reportedly "gave it over with great goodwill and donated an operating table for the purposes of the unit."   
One hundred years on, this resort's writing paper still feels like fine linen.

Golf-Hotel Du Touquet
Etaples (Pas-de-Calais)
Nov 23 /14
France

Dear Mother,
I guess your are worried at not hearing from me for so long, well we have been moving around so much that it was very near impossible to write more frequent. We were the first of the Canadians to land in France. Needless to say we are very proud of the fact. The weather here is grand and the place we are located at is beautiful. Talk about Victoria being a nice place well it is a desert in comparison to France.

The Hindus look quite different in uniform than what we saw in Vancouver and it seems to me that they are a cleaner class. France is a very funny place quite different to what I expected to see. The people are very anxious to do nearly anything in their power to oblige us in anyway.

As you will notice I cannot tell you just where we are in France but I have saw a few of pretty good-sized cities.

The hospital that we have is fine, the quarters that we sleep in was at one time a golfers club with pictures, bath, two fireplaces and a beautiful ground. The boys are in such good humor that it is more like a vacation than war. The Officers are so lenient with us that it goes a long way to make the work more cheerful.

I suppose VV is doing well at College. I am going to write her tomorrow. The girls at college I guess would look at it as a kind of novelty for her to get a letter from somebody at the Front.

Is business just as good as when I heard from Father? I never hear anything from Manitoba at all. Dads letter in England was all I have heard of any of you since we left Valcartier. So you see my transferring to the Hospital changed my address and all my correspondence was lost. But I don’t think it will be long till the war is over. The Germans are getting it on every side and the German public are beginning to realize what the German military officials are, and how they have been kept in the dark.

Well Mother I will be able to write often now. So I will close. My address you will find on the other page. Remembrance to Dad and V-V.
Chas

CR Baily
No 2 Stationary Hospital
First Can. Exped. Force
France

Bye Bye

Not mentioned in Charley's letter home is the note in his service files showing that on the 20th, 21st and 29th of November 1914 he was Absent Without Leave in Boulogne and was docked 3 days pay.
_________________________
Sources:
War Story of the Canadian Army Medical Corps  http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/adami/camc/camc.html#XII 
The WW1 service files of Charles Roy Bailey Canadian Expeditionary Force  #34260  

First Canadians to reach French soil.

Letter #6 of 88.

November 22nd, 1914 from Charles Roy Bailey, to his mom in Viceroy Saskatchewan. 

Charley's military records show that he entered France on November 7th, 1914 attached to the No 2 Stationary Hospital. It was this C.A.M.C. unit that was given the honour of being the first unit of the First Contingent to reach French soil.  

The unit responded so promptly when the call came from British Authorities that it arrived in France before proper arrangements had been made.  For almost three weeks the entire unit of officers, doctors, orderlies and some thirty five Nursing Sisters divided their time between Havre and Boulogne, before they arrived at their destination.

Charley was working as a Druggist in Winnipeg when he volunteered at the outbreak of the war.  Because of this, his postings over the next 4 years would be very specific to managing and dispensing Canadian Medical Stores.  This is his first letter home since October 31st and the only Field Service Post Card that exists in the 88 letter collection.

 

For some background on Le Touquet I offer this passage from `The War Story of the Canadian Army Medical Corps`. 

Le Touquet, some few miles beyond Étaples and on the outskirts of the small but very fashionable watering-place, Paris Plage, had before the war been well known to golf enthusiasts as possessing on its sand dunes the finest and best laid out golf course on the Continent of Europe, with a spacious Golf Club House, and in its immediate neighbourhood a small and cheerful Hôtel du Golf and several villas occupied season after season by enthusiasts of the game. The owner of the hotel, Mr. Stoneham, gave it over with great goodwill, and, what is more, donated an operating table for the purposes of the unit. The Royal Engineers made the necessary structural alterations to the hotel; the Officers were installed in "Robinson Villa," the Nursing Sisters billeted in a most luxurious villa belonging to a Roumanian noble, the orderlies in the Golf Club. By this means accommodation was secured for four hundred patients.  The furniture had been removed and stored by the proprietor, but bedding, sheets and kitchen utensils were left in the building for the use of the Hospital, which in a few days was ready to take in patients, receiving a first convoy of 115 on 4th December, the majority suffering from "trench feet," the others with slight wounds. Other convoys followed in rapid succession, and in three weeks the Hospital was operating at full capacity, under the administration of the A.D.M.S. Boulogne.

Tomorrow Charley writes his first `real letter` home from France.
___________________________________________

Sources:

War Story of the Canadian Army Medical Corps 
at http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/adami/camc/camc.html#XII 

Thanks to Sue Light for a fascinating and unembellished history of the Nursing Sisters of WW1 http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/20.html

November 11th, 1914

While I research and write and piece together Charley Bailey's story; today I pause to remember the young men and boys who were, for the first time in their lives, having to take another mans life.  I think about the poor souls who were fighting and dying on a battlefield 100 years ago today.

And I think of my Great Uncle Charley Bailey.  
Charley was not on the front lines. He was one of the medical personnel who were setting up to tend to those who were.
Charley's military records show that he entered France on the 7th of November, 1914.  On this day 100 years ago, he would likely be arriving at or just arrived at what was to become the #2 Stationary Hospital at Le Torquet.  

The weeks from late September through November 1914 have come to be known as "The Race to the Sea".  The first trenches were being dug about mid September but compared to the next four years of trench warfare, these were battles on the move.

German troops had been attempting to reach Paris. The French were determined to slow the enemies advance. 
As the armies maneuvered, their movement took a north westerly direction toward the  French-Belgian coast and the Channel ports of Calais and Dunkirk.

On November 11th 1914, there was an appeal in the Times of London for citizens to loan their motorized vehicles as the French wounded were suffering terribly owing to the delay in transport from the front to the nearest hospital available.

100 years ago today, the 'Great War' was in it's infancy. There are four bloody years of days and nights ahead till the Armistice is signed on November 11, 1918.  
We would not mark the first Remembrance Day until November 1919.  Lest We Forget.