Correspondence, World War, 1939-1945., World War, 1939-1945--Women.
Monday 7:10 a.m. 5/5 ‘Morning, Sweetie It's a lovely day out, all fresh and cool - I've just returned from a cafeteria breakfast, with paper (including Barnaby) - after spending ten minutes with the map last night I feel, tentatively, as though I know my way around Washington. The green streetcars are nearly all that smooth Coney Island express type and seem to fit in with the city's boulevards much better than the rickety old ones. I notice by the map that this hotel (at 18th and Pennsylvania NW) is just two blocks from the White House. A few doors from my room (927) is a suite marked with a tablet indicating that it was occupied by Oliver Wendell Holmes (d. 1935) [pg 2] during his occupancy of the Chief Justiceship. Though not given to swooning before historical markers or the proximity of the celebrated, I am duly impressed as to being at the hub of things political. At this point I shall tidy up and take off, hoping to pick up a little info on the rooming situation from such of my confreres who may report in a few minutes early. And so to work. 10 p.m. After our conversation I spent an hour or so checking over addresses and deciphering the past month's jargon of notes in my little spiral notebook; just as I was about to carry on with this letter we had a blackout and the damn thing lasted a whole hour! According to the system here there are four sets of sirens about [pg 3] fifteen or twenty minutes apart; of course I supposed it was over after the second and was duly informed to the contrary by the house phone operator of whom I inquired. She had a squeaky, unimaginative voice that didn't invite further conversation; so I went back to my catnap. The series of connected buildings housing the Navy Department in wartime (the grotesque old State “[Department] Bldg is also listed as normally containing war and Navy Depts.) was erected as temporary building during the last war and is not at all impressive. Four stories high, it covers hundreds of acres and is joined by ramps which even cross the lovely mall pond between Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. We spent most of the morning being shuttled [pg 4] about and accomplishing all the preliminaries, including application for travel expense which should be received within a week or so. About 11 we wound up in Huidmarsh's office and he, in shirtsleeves and rather more pleasant than is his grim commencement wont, took us to his civilian assistant, elderly Mr. Shaw (who accompanied him on his interviewing tours). The atmosphere of the room we’re in is pleasant and unmilitary; we are working with maps and place names, and as I told you on the phone, it's a lot more fun, however tedious, than the dry Boulder routine. The men reporting here in general divided into three groups. Those having permanent duty were sent to another part of town to work. Second were those with temporary duty but some prospect of being retained under further orders - Hugh Deane, Lary LeSage, Mike [Hader?], [Schivantes Theros?] and Winger, Frank Ikle and perhaps 2 or 3 more; [pg 5] they work in the same room with the third group of us seven but do more long-term work. I didn't see Jack Williams at all. Howell Breece, with whom I am working (we are all paired) is probably in the same category with Hugh et al. Val Nolan got a very special assignment of which I don't know the particulars; probably to an Admiral's staff. I wish you could be here to enjoy this city with me; it is so much alive, at least in this section. Hugh, who has worked here and knows it better, finds it depressing - he says Washington is all activity and no soul: has no permanency in the sense of atmosphere individuality or something. I think I see what he means, but as for me, it's Spring; the sudden transfer to relatively drab [pg 6] New York to this everywhere green city was exciting; and all this bustle and movement and being the midst of things is fun. But I know that it might have depressed me at a time when I was here alone, a stranger without entrée or special credentials, and more than that, that underneath it all I have every basis for being happy. It's good to feel so alive - Now, my children, its getting past my bedtime, and being much in need of sleep I say Goodnight, precious Warren