Ethel Gardiner Wiggins V-mail and Letters, MSS.4123

Abstract: V-mail and letters to a World War II soldier from his wife back home in Florence, Alabama.Scope and Content Note: The collection contains the almost daily letters and V-mail from Ethel Gardiner Wiggins in Florence, Alabama, to her husband Herbert (Buddy) while he was stationed in Europe serving as a lieutenant in the First Signal Corps during World War II. The bulk of the V-mail is from early April 1943 to mid-March 1944, while most of the letters were written during February and March 1944.Biographical/Historical Note: Ethel Gardiner Wiggins, daughter of David B. and Gertrude Gardiner, was born on March 4, 1921, in Alabama. She attended Alabama Polytechnic Institute (later Auburn University). She married Herbert H. Wiggins in the early 1940s (probably 1940 as the first letter in the collection mentions their son Herbert Jr. and the name on the return address is Mrs. Herbert H. Wiggins); the couple had three sons, Herbert H. Jr., David, and Richard. She died on October 27, 1987 at the age of 66