In an Impassioned Letter to His Wife, Gertrude, 2nd Lt. Francis M. Tracy Declares That Their Separation Has Only Intensified His Love for Her

“Snookie Darling,” 2nd Lt. Francis M. Tracy wrote to his wife, Gertrude, on September 1, 1918, “This is Sunday night, and just outside my billet, some of the dear boys of my platoon are singing love songs about honest to God women, back in the ‘land o’ dreams.’ Small wonder then, that I should think of you….” An orphan raised by the Catholic Church in upstate New York, Tracy was a law student at the prestigious Georgetown University when he first met Gertrude Colman, who was still a teenager attending “finishing school” in Washington, D.C. When Colman went on an unchaperoned date with Tracy, she was abruptly expelled from school. Colman and Tracy soon fell in love, and they married when she was only eighteen. They were together for almost eleven years before Tracy was shipped off to France, and he frequently wrote to his “sweet, willful, fighting, loving, and beloved angel” while he was serving wih the Ninety-first Division. Recognizing that he had not exactly been a model husband back in the States, Tracy emphasized in his letters home how dearly he missed her and that his love for her had only grown. Tracy sent the following on September 20, 1918:

Dearest Woman,

Finished your letter last evening, but had to cut it short, as we moved into a new area last night. Have a few moments to spare, so am going to resume my chat with you, the beginning and the end of my temporal ambitions. Perhaps you will consider it an extravagant statement, but it’s true, just as true as the fact that during this period of separation, there has come a new strong, more spiritual love into my heart for the dear precious woman who has suffered so much, as I am only now beginning to thoroughly understand, at my hands.

For a person who really desires to see the triumphs of his or her better self, and I confess to such desires, on occasions, war is a wonderful aid. You know there is an old saying, which runs like this, “When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be. But when the devil was well, the devil a monk was he,” and I believe that mortals are more or less that way, that fear of what may be awaiting them across the “great divide” makes virtuous men and women, but it isn’t fear that I am speaking about now, my girl, but the coming to understand in the midst of almost inconceivable desolation and suffering caused by nothing else but bestial passion, what a mad, devilish thing, uncontrolled passion is, and the indulgence of small whims, is a sad, sad thing as I know now, to my sorrow and everlasting regret. My one prayer is that I may be privileged to have one more opportunity to try to make you happy. I trust it will be granted me.

You and your Daddy, would have had a good laugh, not so sure of you but I am certain that your father would have enjoyed it, the other night, when a wild boar, ran amuk thru our camp. We were peacefully sleeping in our “pup” tents, when Mr. Boar, came into our little tented burg and started down the main street, looking for trouble. He must have been a Hun boar, for he suddenly took it into his head to see how many tents he could tear up before he got plugged, and he surely did cut a swath while he lasted. Fortunately no one was hurt and it is a wonder too, for he had a pair of tusks in his nether jaw, that could have plowed up a ten acre lawn. However the boys soon trimmed his tusks for him, just as they are trimming the fangs of the rest of the Boche.

This is several days later my dear, the uncertainties and the unlooked for, in war, having compelled me to leave off writing you, at a time, when I would have to preferred to keep on. But—“C’est la Guerre.” “It is war” as our French brothers put it, and if you were here just now, you would conclude that war is no place for a woman. Have had a number of exciting experiences, of late. The Boche dropped a few shells along our line of march and then an airplane came along and tried to cut a few frills with his machine gun. The delightful feature of the whole proceeding was the fact that not one of the boys was even scratched. Oh we are enjoying our European “vacation” immensely.

Received a letter from you yesterday, enclosing a number of pictures which were taken in Tacoma, and one delightfully sweet one of yourself taken at Salem. You look like a sweet spirit just stepping forth from the dim and distant fifties, or the era of hoops and pantalets. My girl, my girl, how I do miss you. I didn’t think it possible for one to be possessed of the longing I have for you. At night I lay awake and think and think of you, the roar of the big guns, giving way before the press of mental pictures of you. I go back and retravel again the entire road that we have known together. Back to the old sweetheart days, over ten years ago, the little girl as I first knew her, comes to me again just as wistfully sweet and ingenuous as she was then, all arrayed in white, or pink or lavendar, from her little pumps to the hat on her dear shock of gold. Do you remember the frocks? I used to wonder then, if the general color scheme prevailed all the way from the outer garments, thru mysteries of lingerie and laces, to the dearest most ravishingly attractive body that ever set a man’s blood on fire.

If I had to go over the same road with you again, I am quite sure the way would be easier for you. The mistakes I have made, the heart aches I have caused you stand out like the shell holes that deface much of this country, that once, was so beautiful. I am learning my lesson, honey, and this experience, this absence from you is burning its brand into my soul, as nothing has ever done before. But God knows I deserve all the punishment I am getting, and I accept it as most penance. I know full well, that it is doing me a world of good. May it continue, until I am safe to be turned loose among civilized peoples. Must break off again. Will continue tomorrow. Good night and God bless and preserve you.

—Write—write. Your devoted Hubby

Although the official notification would not arrive until November 6, 2nd Lt. Francis Tracy was killed on September 27, 1918. A colonel in Tracy’s regiment reported to Gertrude, who had asked for details about her husband’s death, that Tracy had been “struck by a piece of high explosive shell which went over his head, landed about 100 yards past him, exploded, & threw the piece backward—one of those strokes of fate so unaccountable for. He was unconscious and never felt pain or knew what hit him.”