An archival document presenting curated highlights and a full chronological index of 118 handwritten family letters from the Bales family, 1905 to 1966, discovered among scanned family-history PDFs.
A family archive, catalogued 2026118 items · 1905–1966
Letters Home
Sixty years of correspondence from the Bales family — Kentucky tenant farmers whose children scattered to Oklahoma, Montana, Illinois, Indiana, and Florida, and one who never came home from the Philippines.
These 118 letters were recovered from roughly 270 scanned PDFs sitting in a family-history folder — most named only by a scan sequence number, a handful labeled with dates going back to 1905. Reading them in order turns out to tell one continuous story: a Kentucky family broken up by distance, writing to hold itself together across half a century.
One thing worth flagging up front: none of this is the Romero side of the family tree that shares the folder. Every letter here concerns the Bales family — patriarch Julius Bales of Annville, Kentucky, and his children Pollie, Robert, Luther, Frank, Elden, Margaret, Lula, Silas, John, and several others. Almost everything is addressed to Pollie Bales, who married Clinton “Clint” Johnston and settled in McLoud, then Harrah, Oklahoma. It reads as a genuinely separate branch of family history — worth reconciling with the Romero genealogy records stored alongside it, but treated here on its own terms.
Cast of correspondents
Julius Bales The patriarch, Annville, KY. Widowed, remarried, died of pneumonia in 1923 asking to be buried beside his first wife.
Pollie (Bales) Johnston The addressee of most letters. Married Clint Johnston; McLoud & Harrah, Oklahoma. Died around 1934.
Luther Bales Youngest-sounding brother; U.S. Army, Camp Keithley, Philippines, 1905. Killed in action — the family didn't fully piece together what happened for decades.
Robert “Bob” Bales Never married; drifted through Montana for 40+ years — mining, moonshining, WPA relief work, placer gold.
Elden (“Eldon”) & Della Bales Thawville, Illinois. The collection's most prolific and opinionated late-life letter writers.
Lula (Bales) Hall Married Willie Hall; Ridgeville, Indiana, dairy farm. Wrote for over 40 years, into her 70s.
Margaret (Bales) Welch Married “W.F.” Welch, a Kentucky telephone-exchange man; later Lakeland, Florida, during the 1920s land boom.
Frank Bales Montana homesteader, later Illinois; treated twice at the Mayo Clinic for a “weak heart” blamed on tobacco and coffee.
The best of it
Twelve letters, out of 118, worth reading in full.
Luther writes home across the Moro campaign of the Philippine–American War with a soldier's mix of terror and mundanity — sometimes in the same paragraph.
“400 men of the 22nd went out the other night and burnt a Moro village… Private Burke of I Co. was shot through the breast and neck, he died in a minute after being hit.”
“3 nights ago one cut a soldier's head off with a Bolo, and last night the soldiers killed a Moro…”
“The Battalion arrived yesterday from Jolo — they were gone 5 weeks. The no. killed was eleven and 35 wounded — they killed about 700 natives.”
In between: bananas gathered before breakfast, bamboo leaves mailed home as souvenirs, and a fruitless search through Manila for his brother Bob.
c.1945
The telegram that answers the question
A family transcript of an Army condolence letter, copied out and kept
Mixed in with an unrelated 1945 letter is a hand-copied transcript of an official notice from Capt. D. G. Berry, 22nd Infantry: a soldier named Luther was killed in action and buried on a riverbank, alongside a Pvt. Bobb of Company G, shot through the heart the same day. His effects — $2.50 and a gold watch — were being forwarded home.
“We heard that Luther was killed about 1 wk after his death… they always cable the Dept at Washington D.C. when any soldier gets killed.”
It's very likely this is the same cheerful young soldier from the 1905 Philippines letters above — the family's own copy of the news that closed the story, re-copied by hand and kept for forty years.
Mar 1930
“To hell with his old bitch”
Robert Bales, Stryker, Montana → his sister
Thirty years after leaving home, Bob writes the most plainspoken letter in the whole archive — moonshine, deer hunting, and no patience left for his late father's second wife.
“I have lived as I went along for one never knows when they will come to the end of the trail.”
“I used to drink too much whiskey but finally quit the stuff for good. I havent attended church since I left home but — whats the difference?”
“I am very glad they burried poor old dad back home for I am sure its the way he wanted it. To hell with his old bitch.”
1923
“Wish we could of told him”
Two accounts of Julius Bales's death · Hamilton, Ohio, May–July 1923
Elden reports their father's death from pneumonia in plain, dutiful language — a $150 funeral, split three ways between the children who could afford it. A second letter, from a daughter who rarely visited, is rawer.
“I asked him if he was ready and prepared to die, he said he was.”
“Poor old Dady always wanted to go back. Wish we could of told him we would take him back there to be buried.”
The single most affecting letter in the archive. Hazel describes her mother's death from a brain tumor — a stroke, paralysis, a coma, surgery that removed “about 3/4 of her brain” — and what it did to her father afterward.
“Mom was an angel on earth… The doctors said if she had lived it wouldn't have been more than 6 months.”
“Dad is grieving his self to death… He goes to the cemetery every Sunday and lays across her grave and cries and talks to her. It is so pitiful.”
undat.
“Eva did not belong to Pa”
A family rumor and its rebuttal · undated, across two letters
A 1963 letter from Lula repeats old gossip that a sister, Eva, wasn't really Julius's daughter. A separate, undated letter — signed by Julius himself — answers a version of the same accusation directly.
“Margaret always said Eva did not belong to Pa. She said she did not look like any of the other children.”
“That is a thing that no man can tell… The little things are awful good to me and a sight of company for me in my old age, they are to me as Joseph was to his father, the son of his old age.”
1933
“The slanderous publicity I got”
Robert Bales, Kalispell, Montana · March 1933
At the bottom of the Depression, Bob was arrested on mistaken identity and held five days before being released — and he's angrier about the newspaper coverage than the arrest itself.
“Many thousands of people… are living on Relief money and by next winter the number will be greatly increased.”
“I was arrested here recently and held in jail five days on suspicion. As I was not the person wanted, I was turned loose. The thing I most hate is the slanderous publicity I got by the dirty associated press.”
Dec 1933
A dam two miles long
Robert Bales, Columbia Falls, Montana · December 26, 1933
Bob describes, in real time, the New Deal construction of what is almost certainly the Fort Peck Dam — the megaproject that will soon force his brother Frank off his homestead.
“The Government is building a big dam on the Missouri River… a 280 foot dam two miles long and 1400 ft thick at the bottom. It will back the water up for 75 miles or more.”
“I cant see anything promising in the future. People can tell in the slimy newspapers about prosperity just around the corner but I am doubtful if you and I will live to see times but very little better than they are now.”
1926
“Greedy for gain”
Margaret Welch, Lakeland, Florida · April 5, 1926
Written at the peak of the Florida land boom, with a lake engineered six feet lower to drain swamp into buildable lots for Northern transplants. Margaret's husband has money tied up in a citrus grove and a subdivision — and she's uneasy about all of it.
“It is a fine place to get covetous and loose their good Christian experience — greedy for gain… it is all right to make and have money if one does not let it crowd Christ out of their hearts and minds.”
1960
“Give me liberty or give me death”
Elden & Della Bales, Thawville, Illinois · February 2, 1960
The funniest and most opinionated letter in the archive — eight pages of election-year politics, Truman-vs-Eisenhower cost-of-living math, and a stump speech for Nixon.
“Tell Clint that I want him to vote for Dick Nixon for President and he wont loose his vote. There's only one thing to keep him from being president and that's to hawl off and die before next November.”
“We havent had a war Thank God, it's a mighty high price for peace but it's a mighty lot better… than to tell you your son was killed in action.”
1959
A pet bird named Peppy
Elden & Della Bales, Thawville, Illinois · December 17, 1959
Elden nearly died — doctors gave him a “50-50 chance,” and his son has given blood every three months for four and a half years since. The letter turns, without warning, into something much lighter.
“I think I am fortunate to be alive… It's wonderful what surgeons can do for you now.”
“My pet bird is on my hand on my tablet fighting my pencil and talking a blue streak. He sais ‘Hello Jimmie, Peppy is such a pretty baby, come on and give me a kiss.’”
1957
“Willie is so lost without me”
Lula Hall, from her hospital bed, Ridgeville, Indiana · December 1957
Written just after a stroke, using a rigged wheelchair commode her children built and a rubber ball to exercise her hand. Married 52 years by this point.
“Willie is so lost without me, he cries…”
“This is a big hospital, they have got one old man tied down here, he gets loose once and a while, tries to go home… they come in and just die in a few minutes sometimes, it gets your nerves.”
The full register
Every letter, postcard, and scrap that could be dated or placed, in order. Undated pieces are grouped by internal evidence; a few remain genuine guesses.
I · 1905–1910 — Angel Island to Camp Keithley
Jan 1905Luther, Angel Island CA, to Pollie — awaiting transfer south; jokes about a Chinese laundry woman washing officers' clothes.
Jan 1905Luther, Angel Island, to Pollie — mild California weather, “everybody here looks as white as if they never seen the sun.”
Jan 1905Postcard, Honolulu — “Native Hula Dancers”, mailed en route to the Philippines; confirms family still in Dale, Oklahoma Territory.
Jan 1905Luther, Honolulu, coaling stop — brutal seasickness: “I puked and heaved and just kept vomiting till there was nothing left.”
Mar 1905Luther, Camp Keithley, PI, to “Bro + Sister” — 400 men burn a Moro village; Pvt. Burke killed. (featured above)
Mar 1905Luther, Camp Keithley — Co. K, 22nd Infantry; 22-mile hike to Lake Lanao; hunts deer; searches Manila for brother Bob in vain.
May 1905Camp Keithley, torn fragment — only a greeting line survives: “A few lines tonight to let you know I am well.”
Jun 1905Camp Keithley, to Pollie — a rumor that the writer “accidently killed a man” is furiously denied; baby Ralph's illness discussed.
Jul 1905Camp Keithley — a sergeant's throat cut, a mutineer hunted down and killed; postscript about eating bananas before breakfast. (featured above)
Jul 1905Camp Keithley, YMCA stationery — homesick countdown: “only 3 short months till I can go aboard the transport.”
Aug 1905Camp Keithley, taped fragment — typhoon season, homesick for watermelon, a joke that “more monkies raised here than any other vegetable.”
1907Miles City, Montana, unmarried sheepherder brother — finally marrying Jane Combs: “I have lived an old batchelor long enough.”
1910Postcard from “Aunt Margaret” to young Ralph Johnston — sewing for his “baby brothers”; a rooster postcard captioned “Did you lay dis egg?”
1910Forsyth, Montana, fragment — cousins' marriages and engagements; a friend known “since 1899.”
II · 1913–1924 — The war at home, and the old man's death
1913/44Dale Cemetery deed for Rebecca Johnston, rediscovered and mailed to Clint by the cemetery's keeper 31 years later, in 1944.
1916Welchburg, KY — a neighbor's house burns and is rebuilt for $72; “Willie's Ma” dies; a baby named Roby turns two.
1916Annville, KY — “poor old dad… treated bad by his wife”, an early hint of the tension that runs through the whole archive.
1917Irvine, KY — W.F. Welch's telephone exchange is booming: 350 lines installed, “he cannot furnish the people with phones as fast as they call for them.”
Oct 1917Margaret Welch, Irvine, KY — grieving “Papa”; gives up crochet for herself to knit socks for soldiers instead; candid health details.
May 1918Envelope only, Butte, Montana — confirms a Montana connection as early as 1918.
Mar 1918Bob, Butte, Montana — copper mines after a Wyoming lumber camp; “Butte has the name of being the toughest town in the United States.”
Apr 1918Welchburg, KY — corn and tobacco planting; “if the war holds on Bob will soon have to go to this war.”
Feb 1918Annville, KY, aging parent to “Bab” (Bob) — rheumatism, a rupture, brother John's death from “bowel trouble”; wartime prices listed in detail.
Dec 1917“My dear sister” — knitting sweaters and “helmets” for the Red Cross; mercury at seven below zero; wartime pork and butter prices.
1921Leo Eldon, Peotone, IL — newly converted, joining the Methodist church; land at “$40 per acre”; farmers “gone under” in hard times.
Oct 1921Margaret, Lakeland, FL — husband's health blamed on coffee and tobacco; considers, at 38, going back to school.
Nov 1923Mrs. Sherman Bales, Toledo, OH — a short holiday note about burying “the old man” per his wishes.
May 1923Elden, Hamilton, OH — announces Julius Bales's death from pneumonia; funeral cost $150, split three ways. (featured above)
Jul 1923Hamilton, OH — a daughter's guilt-stricken account of the same death; “wish we could of told him we would take him back there to be buried.” (featured above)
Dec 1923Elden, Champaign, IL — now a railroad foreman at $130/month; sharp words for relatives who disrespected “Daddy” while he lived.
Mar 1924Birthday card & envelope, Margaret Welch, Lakeland, FL, to Pollie — a store-bought forget-me-not card; confirms the Florida branch by the 1920s.
Mar 1924Margaret, Lakeland, FL — a hand-drawn family birthday chart in the margin; siblings stop writing after her religious conversion.
III · 1925–1938 — Land booms, the Depression, and Montana
Mar 1925Margaret Welch, Lakeland, FL — a four-week Free Methodist revival, and a matter-of-fact defense of a woman preacher: “no one has any right to forbid her.”
Apr 1926Margaret, Lakeland, FL — the Florida land boom, a drained lake, and a warning against getting “covetous.” (featured above)
Dec 1925Margaret, Lakeland, FL — seriously ill, under 100 lbs; a niece's goiter treated with iodine; husband planning revival meetings in Oklahoma.
Feb 1930Envelope only, Stryker, Montana, from Robert Bales — precedes his famous March letter by a month.
Feb 1930Robert Bales, Stryker, Montana — “shacking up” through the winter near the Canadian border; asks if their father is even still alive.
Feb 1930Frank Bales, Glasgow, Montana — nine years' silence broken; the first telling of his Mayo Clinic “weak heart” diagnosis; buys a Whippet Six.
Mar 1930Robert Bales, Stryker, Montana — moonshine, nine deer, and no love for his father's widow. (featured above)
c.1930Lula, on their father's final illness — “he never did complain like anyone else”; the family's shock at his widow remarrying two weeks after his death.
Aug 1930Champaign, IL — a baby, Marguerite, dies at two weeks old; the grandmother dies days later of a burst blood vessel.
Nov 1931Della & Elden, Liberty, IN — their own baby buried at 13 days old; their dying father's wish to see “poor little Pallie” after 20 years apart.
1933Hagerstown, IN — selling produce roadside; a sorghum mill; six children named, recovering from a three-month fever.
Mar 1933Robert Bales, Kalispell, MT — five days in jail on mistaken identity; fury at “the dirty associated press.” (featured above)
Sep 1934Robert Bales, Coram, Montana — still a bachelor; brother Frank's drought-stricken farm to be flooded by a coming dam.
Dec 1933Robert Bales, Columbia Falls, MT — the Fort Peck Dam under construction, four miles from Frank's homestead. (featured above)
Apr 1934Lula Hall to Clint Johnston — a condolence letter; the envelope, addressed to “Mr.” alone, confirms Pollie's death around this date.
May 1934Frank Bales, Glasgow, MT, to a different sibling — retells the Mayo Clinic story; sends Bob's Coram, MT address.
May 1934Robert Bales, Coram, MT — checks the post office “every two or three days” for a reply; too poor to visit.
Oct 1936Robert Bales, Kalispell, MT, from a hospital bed — knee shattered wrecking old CCC buildings; declares he'll vote for FDR: “it's always the man.”
Sep 1936Robert Bales, Coram, MT — on WPA relief work through the winter, 30 miles from the Canadian border.
Oct 1937Coram, MT, fragment — Dust Bowl commentary: over-plowed land ruined, the “Hoosier” homesteaders who caused it starved out too.
Aug 1937Bob, Coram, MT — just off a highway job in Glacier Park; predicts “dull times” will last the rest of Roosevelt's presidency.
Oct 1938Bob, Coram, MT — working for the E.R.A. in Glacier Park; a philosophical case for having stayed single: “I will go out with a clean slate.”
undated“Daisy and girls” to parents — a man named Bob $26 behind on payments; servicemen restricted to base 30 days over a dice game.
undatedSilas Bales's death from a spinal abscess, and a brother's own melancholy reflection on a life he feels he “tried the wrong things” at.
undatedJulius Bales, in his own hand — Depression-era prices (bacon 35¢, milk cows $50–125); “I am ruptured awful bad… may God bless you all.”
undatedJulius Bales defends Bob's character against a relative who called him “an infidel”; worries over collapsing cotton prices.
undatedJulius Bales defends a daughter, Eva, against a rumor she “did not belong to” him. (featured above)
undatedMargaret — a niece's disability compared to her own childlessness: “with children you have more happiness and more sorrow I suppose.”
undatedMargaret on the phone-exchange operators: “one can't expect girls to have old heads on them… we were once young and had a touch of insanity too.”
undatedPollie's own letter (rare) — life in Indian Territory before statehood: “Wagoner is in the I.T., there is 5,000 inhabitants there.”
IV · 1940–1949 — A second war, and an old question answered
1942Envelope only, Thawville, IL, to Clinton Johnson — confirms “Clint” is Clinton Johnston/Johnson.
Jan 1943Lula, Ridgeville, IN — a 240-acre dairy/soybean farm; a son deferred by the draft board “as it took food to win this war.”
Jan 1944Elden's household — son Jimmie's frightening, misdiagnosed illness; “he never complained… he would say I am ok.”
c.1943–44Lula, age 56 — 22 cows to milk, daughters in defense plants sewing uniforms, egg prices, coffee rationed to a cup a day.
May 1945Lula Hall, Ridgeville, IN — a grandson about to turn 18 and register for the draft; hopes the war “won't get Hitler if he is not dead.”
Oct 1945Elden, Thawville, IL — “87 boys from this community went to war and only one won't come back” — beaten to death by German civilians after being shot down.
c.1945Family transcript of the Army's notice that Luther was killed in action. (featured above)
Apr 1945McKee, KY — “Daddy died April 16, 1945”; mother Martha Bales, 82, living with the writer; aunt and uncle's addresses given.
1948Lula, Ridgeville, IN — winter butchering; the death of “Realie” (their father's widow) after a stroke, with little sympathy spared.
May 1948Lula, Ridgeville, IN — three storms flatten 40 barns countywide; a daughter stationed in Erding, Germany, with her Air Force husband.
Dec 1948A younger “Eldon,” to his own parents — trapping muskrat, opossum, skunk and “civet cat” for pelt money; painting Caterpillar tractors.
Feb 1949Ridgeville, IN — a flu going around the house; a $460 chest freezer; a daughter graduating high school.
Feb 1949A misfiled postwar letter, envelope only surviving in full — “so much distress in this world, yet we have so much to be thankful for.”
V · 1950–1959 — Strokes, hospitals, and Eisenhower
Feb 1956Lula, Ridgeville, IN — rheumatism and cod liver oil; worry over Willie's possible cancer, “he keeps putting it off.”
Sep 1956Lula, Ridgeville, IN — a son-in-law breaks both legs and his pelvis in a hot-rod race; support for Eisenhower's re-election.
Nov 1957Lula, from a hospital bed — “laying on the hospital bed” just after a stroke; a rubber ball for hand exercises.
Dec 1957Lula, Ridgeville, IN, from the hospital — “Willie is so lost without me, he cries.” (featured above)
Oct 1957Lula, Ridgeville, IN, age 70 — a new $268 chain saw, a $1,200 Soil Bank payment; gratitude that old age is easier now than it once was.
Jan 1958Elden, Thawville, IL — reports “Lula's” death of a brain tumor; a nephew “got shot up in Harry Truman's war in Korea.” (likely a different Lula — see note below)
undatedDella & Eldon — a funeral attended alone because a coal fire couldn't be left untended; “Lula was just like a real sister to me.”
Jul 1958Hazel Davenport, Richmond, IN — her mother's death from a brain tumor; her father's Sunday visits to the grave. (featured above)
May 1959Envelope only, Shawnee, OK.
Jan 1959An unsigned young woman, recovering after a hospital stay — down to 111 lbs; Lonnie and Dick hunting rabbits and quail.
Dec 1959Elden & Della, Thawville, IL — a near-fatal illness, a son's blood donations for 4½ years, and a talking pet bird named Peppy. (featured above)
Dec 1959Envelope only, Thawville, IL — confirms Elden's surname as Bales.
VI · 1960–1966 — Nixon, anniversaries, and the last letters
Feb 1960Elden & Della, Thawville, IL — an eight-page election rant, Truman-vs-Eisenhower cost-of-living math, and a stump speech for Nixon. (featured above)
Apr 1954Lula, Ridgeville, IN — garden planting with the radio too loud to think; “Eva never wrote me any more after I wrote her I could not keep her kid.”
Nov 1954Lula, Ridgeville, IN, on ivy stationery — Uncle Fred Bales has died; approves of expanded Social Security for farmers.
Dec 1954Elden, Thawville, IL — anguish that son Jim will enlist right after graduation: “can't the world be at peace and let these boys live their natural lives.”
Nov 1962Lula, Ridgeville, IN — brother Frank gravely ill with suspected cancer in California; a grandson home safe from the army amid Cold War tension.
c.1962–63Lula — a fall down basement stairs hanging onions; a new freezer; confirms Frank Bales has since died.
May 1963Lula, Ridgeville, IN — a son's wedding, a daughter's school trip to Washington — then, abruptly, “Eva did not belong to Pa.” (featured above)
May 1966Lula, Ridgeville, IN, decorative card — storm damage near Atlanta; her and Willie's 50th wedding anniversary. “Fifty years is a long time.”
May 1966Lula, continued — still gardening despite rheumatism; “I am getting like an old duck.” The last dated letter in the collection.
VII · Undated & ephemera
poem“The Tramp's Mother” — a hand-copied Victorian song lyric about a mother bidding her son goodbye, kept as a keepsake rather than an original letter.
poem“A Boy That Wants to Be Like His Dad” — another copied-out sentimental verse, said to have hung framed in a juvenile courtroom.
scrapbook“Recipe – Utility Bill” — a paid 1958 gas bill, a corn relish clipping, a parachute joke about muddy roads, and two comic postcards.
letter“Rose Letter”, from niece Cora, on rose-printed stationery — sledding, visiting relatives, and a guess at “Aunt Pollie”'s 77th or 78th birthday.
letterUndated, Hagerstown, IN — giving up tobacco and cotton for melons and wheat; threshing crews paid “a dollar and a half a day, some paid two.”
fragmentAn elder Bales sibling, age 64, lists the surviving children of “Grand Pa Bales”: himself, John (80), Jasper (70), Rena (62), Fred (59).
fragmentLula negotiates the sale of the family farm, a buyer offering up to $35,000; cod liver oil “about all the medicine that will penetrate the joints.”
fragment“M.W.” (Margaret Welch) — a father's fear of dying “just like Grandfather did”; folk-astrology advice on when to wean a baby.
fragmentA shaky-handed Thanksgiving gratitude list — children, grandchildren, faith, “good bed,” and still having her eyesight.
fragmentRaw, unsigned account of marital conflict with “Daisy” — confronted at a dance hall, disputes over support payments.
fragmentEldon, ill, eating small meals five or six times a day — “stay in, sis, out of the cold and don't worry about me, I will be O.K.”
variousA dozen further envelopes, postcards, and one- or two-line notes — storm damage, births, visits, and short greetings that confirm addresses and dates without adding new stories.