Charles and Eula Adams letters

Creator: Adams, Charles Henry, 1918-

Date: 1942-1945

Level of Description: Coll./Record Group

Material Type: Manuscripts

Call Number: Ms. Coll. 855

Unit ID: 47238

Restrictions: There are no restrictions on this collection.

Biographical sketch:

Charles Adams: U.S. Army Fifth Air Force nutrition officer stationed at Camp Barkeley, Tex.; in the Pacific; Milney Bay, New Guinea, during World War II. Of Burdick, Kan. Full name: Charles Henry Adams.
Died 2003.

Eula Adams: World War II industrial worker; of Oxford, Wellington, Kan. Full name: Eula Mae Peters Adams.

Abstract: This collection consists of letters, V-mail, postcards, and Christmas & other greeting cards sent by Charles and Eula Adams to each other and to other family members and friends during World War II. Some of the other individuals include Eula's mother, Emma Peters; Charles's parents, Henry L. & Bertha F. Adams; and his sister, Beth Fisher. Charles Adams went through the letters before he died and wrote content notes on the envelopes of many of them.

Space Required/Quantity: 1.00 cubic feet

Title (Main title): Charles and Eula Adams letters

Titles (Other):

Charles and Eula Adams papers
Letters : Charles and Eula Adams
V mail
Christmas cards
Miscellaneous cards

Biography

Biog. Sketch (Full):

Charles Henry Adams was born on 7 November 1918 on a farm near Burdick, Kansas. He attended schools in both Burdick and Wilsey and went on to attend the Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University) in Manhattan where he received his bachelor's and master's of Science. He was drafted during World War II and -- after training at Camp Barkeley, Texas -- served as a nutrition officer in the Fifth Air Force, during which time he was stationed in the Pacific, notably Milney Bay, New Guinea. After the war, Charles taught at both Kansas State and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the Animal Science Department, later becoming associate dean of agriculture. He received his doctorate in animal husbandry in 1964 from Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Eula Mae Peters was born in 1906 at the family farm near Oxford, Kansas. She attended schools at Fairview and Oxford before earning her teacher's certification and degree from Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia (now Emporia State University). She taught in various districts around the State of Kansas, and it was while she was teaching in Manhattan that she met and married Charles Adams. They married on 29 April 1943 in El Dorado, Kansas. While Adams was deployed during the war, Eula lived with her mother in Oxford or in Wellington, Kansas. She worked at the Boeing airplane plant in Wichita and at another plant in Wellington during the war. She ended her career working as an assistant librarian at the C.Y. Thompson Library at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, having worked there for fifteen years.

Eula Peters Adams died 12 April 1999. Charles Adams remarried 23 December 2000 to a lifelong friend, Beryle Supple Somer Janousek. Charles died 20 December 2003. Charles and Eula are buried in Oxford Cemetery in Oxford, Kansas.

Scope and Content

Scope and content:

Most of the letters cover the period of Charles Adams's deployment overseas from February 1944 to December 1945. Charles and Eula Adams wrote each other almost every day at the beginning and virtually every day in 1945. Not all letters are here: In 1994 and 1995 Charles reviewed all his letters to write brief histories of what he was doing each month. Letters to Eula are still in their envelopes and have notes written on the outside as to their content. Some others, not included, were marked To be read by Charles Adams only.

The collection contains letters and cards for Christmas, anniversaries and Easter.

Contents: Ser. 1. Opened letters -- ser. 2. Sealed letters -- ser. 3. Postcards -- ser. 4. Greeting cards.

Locators:

Locator	Contents
110-03-03-20

Index Terms

Subjects

Creators and Contributors

Additional Information for Researchers

Restrictions: There are no restrictions on this collection.

Use and reproduction:

NOTICE: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). The user is cautioned that the publications of the contents of this collection may be construed as a violation of copyright. Copyright derives from the principle of common law, affirmed in the 1976 Copyright Act as amended, that the writer of an unpublished letter or other manuscript has the sole right to publish the contents thereof for the duration of the copyright unless he or she affirmatively parts with that right; copyright descends to his or her legal heirs regardless of the ownership of the physical manuscript itself. It is the responsibility of an author or his or her publisher to secure permission of the owner of copyright in unpublished writing.

Cite as: Charles and Eula Adams Collection, 1942-1945, no. 855, Library & Archives Division, Kansas State Historical Society.

Action note: Finding aid prepared by Debra A. Riley, 2008.