Description
The Swope Family Correspondence contains letters from Charles Byron Swope to his new wife
Gretchen, written from Fort McDowell on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, between
December 1917 and November 1918. The letters begin shortly after Swope's induction into
the US Army and end the day before the World War I Armistice was signed on November 11,
1918. Swope wrote about personal and financial matters, the loneliness of his separation
from his wife, his efforts to increase his income as a musician and photographer, and his
dream of owning a farm. His letters also provide insight into everyday life on a
stateside military base during World War I.