The Letters of Donald Hainer

THE LETTERS OF DONALD HAINER AT FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY, THE INSTITUTE ON WORLD WAR II AND THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE

 

The Donald Morley Hainer collection contains about 20 letters from Donald to his parents and/or his sister, Laurie. His letters were often witty, silly, and light-hearted. He signed the first letter “Stuff and Nonsense.” His second letter concluded, “Red showed me all the letters that Speedy has been getting from you people, and that’s the only way I get to know what’s going on. By reading other peoples mail that my folks send them. Oh well, Don.” This correlates with another common theme of his letters—Don’s great concern with keeping up with what was going on at home. He was constantly requesting more pictures of everyone and wanting to know who was going with whom. “You don’t know how good it is to see someone you know even if only in a picture.” Once he left California, his letters became more reassuring. On May 22, 1944 he told his mother “just because I don’t write doesn’t mean anything so don’t worry. Promise?” He was wounded in the foot in the summer of 1944 (in a previous letter he said he was going to the Mariana Islands, so this possibly occurred with the Marines on Saipan). He reassured his mother it was clean, that no bones were broken, and that he was recuperating quickly in the Solomon Islands.

Some other things he discusses are going to shows with his friends during free time, the great ice cream he gets aboard ship, and keeping up with current music (he’s a big fan of Frank Sinatra and Glen Miller).

In his Jan. 2, 1944 letter home, he informed his parents he had been rated HA1/c, which means Hospital Apprentice first class. His next letter, dated Jan. 7 informs his parents that Don has been drafted to be a corpsman in the Fleet Marines. He was OK with this as he had several friends with the Marines. He left for the Pacific theater in the early spring of 1944--March.

Below are a few longer excerpts that were especially memorable.

 
May 1, 1944: Dear Laurie + Punk, (Punk is Don’s pet name for his niece Susan, Laurie’s daughter)

… “You could have knocked me over with an exclamation point when you told me Bunty was getting tied to Louis Morretti. I’m sure glad you two didn’t get hitched. I can’t imagine Susan having black, kinky hair and black eyes.”

November 9, 1944:  Dear Mom, Dad & All.

… “Also don’t forget to have Flo give my namesake a hearty handshake for after all you just don’t go around kissing boy’s no matter how old you are, as you can see from the above I want Don to be raised to be a real trooper, or in words that aren’t quite so stupid, I want him to be an honest to God hundred % guy.”

--- There was a v-mail included in the collection to his “favorite mother-in-law.” He devoted a decent amount of time, especially after he has left California, to talk of Flo. He was quite worried about her before he heard she and the baby had made it through the labor OK.

Last letter in collection from ‘Blanche’ dated May 25^th : Sent sympathies upon news of Don’s death. “I can sympathize with you for I lost all I had. It nearly got me; but I just figured I had to go on living. Many nights I just walked the floor and said, I can’t, I can’t, stand it- but I had to fight it all out alone, and often wished it was a year more so perhaps I would feel better but God gave me strength, which I prayed for, and brought me through. I never could see the reason but he must have had a reason for so doing, I never could understand.” Requests the Hainers write whenever they feel they can.