Letter of 4 Sep 1952

Only twenty-three days after I had written my first letter from Mary Snyder, the mother of "my" Snyder, I received a return letter from her. She seemed desperate to know the details of Snyder's death, so (the next day) I answered with the letter on this page. The letter is as truthful and accurate as then seemed appropriate; but, below it, I will explain a couple of things it says. I wish the letter could have had the same background music then that it does now - maybe it would have helped to console her, even if only a little bit.

As I inferred above, this letter omits some details that I didn't want to talk about at the time, but which I did explain to her older son, Richard, after he found me in 1989. Otherwise, the letter is generally truthful, particularly in saying that Snyder showed much courage that day.

An exception to the truth of the letter is a matter of which I did not speak to anyone until I wrote Richard Snyder in 1989: I was not up to traveling the twenty yards to see what I already knew had happened.

IBB Page Two     Index to Snyder's Pages
Letter of 11 Aug 1952     Letter of 5 Jun 1989