The letters begin in 1941 with Gordon’s graduation from university and his commissioning as an Army artillery officer and with Cary’s second year of college. They take the reader through their meeting in 1942; courtship against the backdrop of war; marriage in 1943; training for the invasion; six months in England; ten months of combat in France, Germany and Austria; and seven months in an Army of occupation.

Both were prodigious letter-writers, as were their families who wrote them regularly. Most letters run more than 600 words.

On the homefront, the Ohio River floods; travel and communication suffer the war’s burdens; childhood diseases come in waves; difficult pregnancies don’t end well; the businesses of law, light manufacturing and coal continue; family gatherings continue but with less and less meat and butter; the casualties mount; and, suddenly, the dreams of peace meet harsh realities.

For the compiler, Gordon & Cary’s oldest son, Peter, reading these letters was like renewing conversations with people long dead. For the most part, the letters read as their writers spoke. Their sensibilities bring back to life family dynamics experienced in the 1950s.