The Muhlenberg Memories Project
Muhlenberg Correspondence
and the Victory Flashes
Jack H. Blair III ’38 wrote from the Southwest Pacific: “It was with great pleasure upon receiving your most thoughtful Christmas present. It arrived yesterday, after traveling half the globe. To have you folks thinking of us, who are away to wars in distant lands, is enough to instill that much more fighting spirit. I would give almost anything to see the little and stately college on the outskirts of Allentown. The tranquility of the campus and surroundings would indeed be gratification in itself.” (13 January 1943)
The stationery was much needed and valued, and immediately employed: According to Walter Feller ‘44, “I received the gift of stationery from Muhlenberg College and was very pleased by it. It was about the most useful gift that I received this Christmas, and I wish I could thank all those who made it possible to send us former Berg men such a fine present….
“Keep writing your letters about Berg and Berg men in the armed forces. It’s swell to hear about the college and how it’s getting along in athletics and other things, and your letters are about the only way I can keep track of what’s happening to a lot of my friends and former classmates. So keep on writing your ‘scuttlebutt.’” (28 December 1943)
From Edward Brown ‘46: “You will notice that immediate use is being made of my Christmas present from Muhlenberg–thank you very much for the packet of ‘Berg stationery and also for your letter dated ‘Dec. 24.’ I appreciated them alot, especially since this is the first Xmas I have spent away from Allentown and my home.” (24 December 1944)
The stationary, and the correspondence, served a dual purpose, according to Richard Erb ‘46: “Thanks a million for sending the stationery to me on Christmas — it certainly is wonderful the way you constantly keep us in touch with the College. There isn’t another fellow that I know who hears from his college like I do. Hearing about your classmates here and there certainly keeps a fellow close to home and also shows him how large the world is.” (25 January 1945):
Muhlenberg’s sports teams, especially the basketball team, soared to previously-unknown levels of prestige from 1944 through 1946, and countless correspondents remarked enthusiastically about it in their letters, as did Robert Hale ‘44: “Your ‘Victory Flashes from Berg’ dated 23 February arrived today amid numerous reports on short wave of the “Victory Flashes” in Europe for which we have waited so long. Good news from home and front from the European war front simultaneously is manna from heaven. I poured over your news items with great enthusiasm and pride. The basketball club sure more than did itself proud this last season and I literally have pointed with pride to that list of impressive victories the boys turned in saying to my fellow officers aboard here, ‘There she is – that’s Muhlenberg.’ It’s tough to argue with the boys from across the country who never heard of ‘Berg, but gradually I can see a marked gain in prestige here, won only through ‘braggadocio.’” (7 May 1945)
