This collection contains 9 letters that Frank S. Buchanan wrote to his fiancée, Josephine Aurandt, during his stateside service in the United States Marine Corps during the First World War. Also present are 8 photographs.
Buchanan discussed camp life, including frequent drills and barracks inspections, and his experiences in Boston, Massachusetts, and Parris Island, South Carolina. Boston's proximity to the ocean pleased him, though he often got lost in the city's "quaint" and "narrow" streets (June 9, 1918). Though he remained in the United States throughout the war, Buchanan knew others who served in Europe. He wrote Josephine about a button supposedly taken off of a dead German soldier (July 13, 1918) and told her that he could easily have been among the many friends killed or wounded in France (October 30, 1918).
The collection also contains 8 photographs: 5 show a United States soldier in uniform, 2 are group photographs of military personnel, and 1 depicts a bulldog referred to as "Our Mascot."
Frank Speer Buchanan was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on February 27, 1899, the son of Frank M. and Alice Buchanan. After graduating from Altoona High School in 1917, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps; he served in Massachusetts until the end of World War I. He worked with the local Shaffer Stores Company throughout the interwar period and joined the Pennsylvania National Guard in the late 1920s. During World War II, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and commanded a tank-destroying battalion. Frank S. Buchanan was killed in action in France on October 12, 1944. He and his wife, Josephine Aurandt, had four children: Frank, Josephine, Shirley, and Richard. Their two sons also served in the United States military during World War II: Frank, an officer in the army air forces, escaped from a German prison camp after being shot down in Italy, and Richard, a private, was killed in the Philippines on March 7, 1945.
