Happy Thanksgiving Postcard

Found this postcard in my uncle Leigh Hansen's post card book:

The back has a note from my aunt Carrie Hansen to Lee (sic) Erland Hansen. It was postmarked about a week before Leigh's second birthday. Carrie was away at college and she was just 17 then.

Veterans Day 2018

This years Veterans day is the 100^th anniversary of the end of WWI the war to end all wars. It is also the 129^th anniversary of when Washington became a state in 1889. Neither of my grandparents were in WWI, Anton Hansen was too old born in 1870 and the oldest that had to register for service were born in 1872. Charles Kelly was a railroad worker and of prime age for a soldier, but railroad workers were not drafted. He did fill out a draft registration card though.

Here is three photos of my uncle Leigh Hansen taken in May of 1919, not quite 6 years old yet. He did serve in WWII as an aircraft mechanic, spent most of the war in Arizona, but was in Panama for four months in the spring 1943.

My dad Claude Hansen was 12 when WWI ended, and like his brother Leigh he served in WWII also. He was in a service squadron that serviced the B-17 and B-24 bombers. They started here in Spokane, went to England, then north Africa and finally in Italy. Here is a photo of their camp at San Severo Italy. Pop ran the motor pool, keeping all the vehicles they had running.

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