“Hello there my grandchildren, how are you doing today,” said grandfather Henry. He is an amazing man who is going to tell us an amazing story of one of his hard choices in life. I wish I, George, could be as influential as my grandfather is so that I can grow up to be like him. We all went over next to the couch and sat down in front of him so that we could listen to his story that he had to tell us.

Now, back in the year of 1861, the Civil War had broken out and they were in a need of men. As you children already know, I was living in Springfield Illinois, as a tailor. I had a pretty successful business that I was running during that time. I had plenty of things that I was tailoring in a span of about a week when there came a letter in the mail. It said that the government was in need of people to work for them during the time of the Civil War. I took the letter back home to Gertrude and showed her the letter and she all of a sudden got this really scared look on her face. She looked at me, with this deep compassion in her eyes, as she ran her fingers through my beard as she usually did. She said to me that she would be worried with me going into the fighting zone and that she would trust me in whatever decision that I made.

Now came the choice where I had to decide to go off to war or to stay at home. I had a very compassionate wife with two children in the house that I loved and still love dearly. I also had a very good job that I was running that paid about $12 a month. If I went off to war, that would pay $15 a month but I would have to be away from my wife and children. It took a lot of time for me to decide what to do but I finally decided to go off to war on the side of the North. My wife believed that I would take care of myself and so I went off to join the regiment that I was assigned to. I went
through a couple weeks of training and then the commander of the regiment asked if anyone of the men was experienced with tailoring because they needed some special uniforms for the commanders and people higher up in power. I raised my hand and showed them what I could do and they accepted me and I made uniforms the rest of the time during the war.

The war finally ended and I went back home to my wife and children and here we are now. I was amazed by his story that he told us and I later asked him if I could have a picture of him and Gertrude. He said yes so I took and I grew up to be a young man when World War I broke out. My grandfather influenced me to make the choice of my life and go off to war. So I am writing to you know from the battlefield in the Argon Forest. Thank you so much grandpa for your great mind and soul.