Unheard Voices, Untold Stories

Unheard Voices, Untold StoriesUnheard Voices, Untold Stories by Nancy J. Cramer
ISBN: 978-0985760311
Published by Walsworth Publishing Company on 2015
Genres: Reference
Pages: 163

 

 

 

Unheard Voices, Untold StoriesUnheard Voices, Untold Stories, Volume 2 by Nancy J. Cramer
ISBN: 978-0-9857603-2-8
Published by Walsworth Publishing Company on 2015
Genres: Reference
Pages: 176

An interesting collection of documents and interviews with family members of deceased WW1 veterans. The author’s volunteer work at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City both inspired her and provided access to archives and artifacts to help assemble these two books.

Stories cover 35 categories including New Immigrants, American Nurses, Poison Gas, Veterinary Hospitals, African-American Troops, Engineers and Pioneers, Army of Occupation, After the War, Songs of World War I, and more. Cramer is a good writer who shows sympathy for her subjects.

One example is a letter from Private John Lewis Barkley who wrote to his brother from France about a combat action on 7 October 1918—a rare occurrence considering that censors usually deleted such details. Cramer unites Barkley’s letter and photograph with the U.S. War Department’s official description of his actions that led him to receiving the Medal of Honor.

As reference books, however, these two volumes suffer from a lack of an index and footnotes, making it difficult to cite them for other works. They are still entertaining reads.

Reviewed by Dana Lombardy, publisher of WWOI

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