Dr. Thomas J. Shaeper, professor of history, recently published a new book, titled "Somewhere in France: The World War I Letters and Journal of Private Frederick A. Kittleman." In 1983, a man cleaning out his attic in Olean came across a stack of papers that had previously gone unnoticed. After glancing through them, he discovered they were letters dealing with World War I and brought them to nearby St. Bonaventure to donate to the library. The library alerted Schaeper and what resulted was a decades-long project. The letters were those of Priv. Frederick A. Kittleman, a small-town man who regularly wrote to his family after being drafted in 1918 and sent to France. The letters are contrasted with Kittleman's journal, which recounts the gritty details of battle that he shielded from his family in their correspondence. "Somewhere in France" will be available Feb. 1.
Read the full story about his book on the SBU web page here.
