This censored cover found on eBay caught my attention because of two, maybe insignificant, points of interest. It is a letter from a young soldier to his mother whom he obviously loved very much. It is a letter that was posted in Italy via the Military Postal Service on November 27, 1944 to his mother who lived in Otter Lake Station, a post office on the Ottawa, Arnprior & Parry Sound Railway (later the C.N.R. and now abandoned). That receiving backstamp was the second point that was an attraction for me, because Otter Lake Station is a community that fitted right in with my collection of Parry Sound District postal history.
From the very attractive, and neat calligraphy we can discover that the writer is Raymond Vince. A quick search on Google and we learn that Raymond Vince was born in 1925 and served with the Canadian Army as a private in the Perth Regiment, R.C.I.C. fighting the war in in the Italian Campaign. On a very sad note we learn that 19-year-old Raymond was killed in action less than a month after he wrote this card to his mother. It may very well have been his last message to his beloved Mother. Raymond died December 20, 1944. He rests in peace in the Villanova Canadian War Cemetery, Italy (IV. C. 5.).
And to bring this to a conclusion, Otter Lake Station post office opened March 1, 1908 and closed June 15, 1945. The 23-mm cds found on the back of the cover as a receiving mark was proofed July 10, 1935, and its date of December 8, 1944 may well be the latest known postmark of this device.
submitted by Gus
From the very attractive, and neat calligraphy we can discover that the writer is Raymond Vince. A quick search on Google and we learn that Raymond Vince was born in 1925 and served with the Canadian Army as a private in the Perth Regiment, R.C.I.C. fighting the war in in the Italian Campaign. On a very sad note we learn that 19-year-old Raymond was killed in action less than a month after he wrote this card to his mother. It may very well have been his last message to his beloved Mother. Raymond died December 20, 1944. He rests in peace in the Villanova Canadian War Cemetery, Italy (IV. C. 5.).
And to bring this to a conclusion, Otter Lake Station post office opened March 1, 1908 and closed June 15, 1945. The 23-mm cds found on the back of the cover as a receiving mark was proofed July 10, 1935, and its date of December 8, 1944 may well be the latest known postmark of this device.
submitted by Gus