Letter from Eric dated 30 April 1917
Envelope
On Active Service
Miss Jean Summers -
c/o Hon Sec, Coromandel Valley
Red X Club -
Coromandel Valley
S Australia
ES Baldock
Letter
France
30 4/17
Dear Jean
Yesterday I was issued a pair of sox sent over by the Comfort’s Fund people, & was pleasantly surprised to find a note in one of them. They are very nice sox, & I am sure that I was just as pleased to get them as you must have been, to win the prize at the Industrial Show for knitting them – I think you are very clever to be able to knit such sox – Once in hospital I tried to learn to knit but made such a hopeless muddle of things
2
that I gave it up – Should you care to drop me a note at any time I shall be delighted to answer it – I am a Victorian & my address is 24th Battalion, 2nd Aust. Div. France. I left Australia as a private nearly two years ago, gaining a commission over here about 4 months ago, was lucky enough to win the Military Cross quite lately, & am still going strong – now you know all about me don’t you ? Do write sometimes when you have nothing to do –
Once again thanking you for your beautiful sox –
Yours sincerely
Eric S Baldock. Lieut.
Jean Filmer Summers was the adopted daughter of George Wright SUMMERS and Catherine Sarah FILMER. Jean was born on 30 December 1902 and was 14 ½ years old when she received the letter from Eric. We do not know if Jean continued to correspond with Eric. Jean never married and passed away tragically aged 70. Jean and 17 other members of the Brighton Senior Citizens Club of South Australia were killed when the bus they were traveling in failed to take a narrow corner and plunged about 200 feet down a very steep embankment about four miles from Cabramurra in the Snowy Mountains. Jean left her estate to her church and this letter was among other private correspondence passed on to the Filmer family after her death. The letter is now my keeping.
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Submitted 8 June 2016
by Eleanor Filmer