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Jul 13, 2018 · Vachon initially received about 100 letters in the mail. Overwhelmed by the response, she gave about half of them to girlfriends who said they’d write back to the correspondents. She kept 49, all from Marines or Navy men who wrote about their backgrounds and described their experiences in the war.
Vachon, J. (2004). Letters to Penny. In M. Orvell (Ed.), John Vachon’s America: Photographs and Letters from the Depression to World War II (pp. 123-246). Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520420595-004
Although his dreams of professional writing never came to fruition, his expansive journaling and many letters to his wife, Penny, as he traveled the country for the FSA show how thoughtful and articulate he was about the purpose of his work.
Vachon nurtured a lifelong ambition to be a writer, and the intimate and revealing letters he wrote from the field to his wife back home reflect vividly on American conditions, on movies and...
- John Vachon
- University of California Press, 2003
- Miles Orvell
During that time, Vachon also dreamed of becoming a writer, although he published very little. Vachon, who was shy, had a troubled personal life. His friends and family worried about his alcoholism and risk-taking behavior. His first wife, Millicent (Penny) Leeper, also struggled with emotional issues. He married her in 1937.
Feb 10, 2015 · Vachon, of Johnson, was the first Vermonter to use the state’s 2013 law that allows terminally ill patients to hasten their own deaths, according to her neighbor and friend, Meg Harris.
John Vachon's images and correspondence provide a fascinating counter-narrative to the end of American isolation and the coming of World War II. His writings are a trove of information, written...
