Nancy Drew I Am Not

At an antique show last weekend, I picked up "A First Russian Reader"  and inside the cover of the book was an envelope containing two letters from 1944-1945.  The lady who sold me the book was just a dealer and had no idea where the book came from.  I bought the book for the letters, and I have been extremely intrigued by them.

These are love letters written from a British woman to an American soldier during WWII.  Did I mention she was married and her husband was deployed with the British Army?  Yeah, it's pretty scandalous stuff.  The outside of the letter had been addressed to a W.S. Kowalski, so I was able to track him down through online obituaries and discover more about him.  Apparently, he married a German woman from Berlin seven years later, so this love story never had a happy ending.

The book itself has two names (Geo. W. James and Preston Barnes) and military information in the front cover.  Neither of the names is the same as the guy who the letter was written to, but both of the names are part of groups that were located in Berlin at the same time, so for some reason this book was passed around.

The letters themselves were signed by a woman named "Rosie" (nickname?), and she posted them from a Waggons and Horses Inn that I have traced to a pub that is still there in Somerset, England.

For all of these people (except Rosie), there are military ID numbers (one British, one American), but I don't know how to find out how these people are connected. Part of me wonders if one of the other men was her husband, but I doubt it.  I don't know if there is some archive where you can look up people by their numbers. As far as Rosie, I have no idea where to begin to find out more about her.  I have no last name, just an address.  I don't know how to find out more without contacting family members (who may not like to hear about an old affair).

It is kind of weird, but I always have searched through old books hoping to find this exact kind of thing, and now that I have, I want to know more about them.  Scott thinks I should just write a novel about it.  He would.