April 10, 1918 – Full diary entry:

“Went to Des Moines to see Elinore. Thot it would be my last night with my darling. Stayed with Mrs. Jones. Mr. drove us to camp in his car. Wired home that I was leaving.”

After 10 days with no entries, this is where the war portion of Robert’s diary really begins. There will be daily entries for the next four months, so stay tuned.

There’s a book called War in Words, written by Daniel W. Phillips, who was at Camp Dodge at the time as Robert. I haven’t quoted it here so far because I’ve been trying to contact his descendants to receive permission. No luck yet, so I will risk including a short portion here because it adds a great deal of color to Robert’s brief passages. Here he is talking about the soldiers’ overnight trips to Des Moines:

Where was Robert today? See the timeline.