Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of letters written to Evelyn Dixon between 1942 and 1944. A majority of the letters are from soldiers in the Army Air Corps that she met during their training at the Chanute Air Force Base in Champaign County, Illinois.
Evelyn Dixon (1914-2008) was born and raised in Champaign, Illinois. During World War II, several Army Air Corps members trained at the nearby Chanute Air Field. Dixon met several soldiers through her older brother, Elmer Dixon. Elmer served in the Army Air Corps from 1939 to 1945, when he was killed in action. In 1957, Evelyn married Emmett Kirby, also of Champaign, Illinois.
This collection contains letters written to Evelyn Dixon of Champaign, Illinois, from 1942 to 1944. A majority of the letters were from Hugh Atkinson or Charles E. Bateman, both members of the Army Air Corps. Atkinson wrote 11 letters to Dixon from an Army Air Corps base in Atlanta, Georgia, and he discussed his training, including details of night flying classes, different aircrafts, and his first solo flight. Bateman wrote Dixon 27 letters from August 1942 to September 1943. The first letter from Bateman was from Chanute Air Field in Rantoul, Illinois. Bateman was later stationed on the West Coast, and he continued to write Dixon from the various bases he worked at. He discussed financial hardships and hinted at some romantic interest between him and Dixon. In 1943, Bateman wrote that he had gotten married, which he acknowledged might be surprising to Dixon. He wrote that he and his new wife were better suited to each other than Dixon and he had been. The collection also includes two letters written to Dixon in 1944 from Bateman’s mother, Mrs. Charles Bateman.
The Library acquired this collection prior to 2016. They may have been donated in 1977, along with the Emmett Kirby Papers (MS 040).
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