DescriptionThe Honor Roll Newsletter Collection is an incomplete set of newsletters spanning 1943-1945. They were composed by a local high-school English teacher, Mae Call, who would mail them to local servicemen stationed in the United States and overseas during World War II. The newsletters also were sold locally for $0.05 each.
The newsletters include snippets of local news (weddings, births, deaths, moves, gossip, and general news); photographs of local servicemen and their families and girlfriends, and local events; humorous illustrations; newspaper clippings; clippings of pin-up girls and comics; and the Honor Roll listing of all servicemen from Chester. Call also included the mailing addresses of servicemen so readers could write to their local heroes. Additionally, she printed the stories of soldiers who had been injured in the line of duty and where they had been hospitalized, as well as local residents’ ill health and/or injuries.
The tone used by the author is upbeat, touching, and light-heartedly humorous, where possible. The amount of detail Call used in her descriptions allows researchers to follow the events and people of Chester to a great degree during final years of World War II.
RightsWhile some materials in this collection are in the public domain, in other cases copyright restrictions may apply. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Local History Librarian, Chester Public Library, 250 W. Main Street, Chester, NJ 07930.