Letters from King Prior to Helen Prior. Letters contain information about King’s activities; he states that there is nothing to buy, instead of using money he trades cigarettes because the people have no use for money; states that he is moving out. From December 25 and on, King is in Germany living in half-demolished apartment buildings; the town still has some German citizens but they are kept separate from the Army and no one is allowed to speak to them., 1944 Dec 6-31

File — Box: 2, Folder: 8

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

From the Collection:

The collection consists mainly of correspondence between William King Prior and his wife Helen while he was serving in World War II and she was home in Jefferson City, Missouri. Also included in the last two folders are a history of the Prior family, several photographs, and programs. The collection also includes a packet of translated emails between Nikolaus Messmer and Prince Maximilian of Germany. Apparently, Prior had taken some family heirloom postcards from a castle in Germany that his company lived in during the war. Prior’s niece, Helen Backer, wanted to return the postcards to the Prince and his family. She enlisted the help of a neighbor who spoke German and eventually sent the cards to the Prince along with several of Prior’s original letters describing the castle and several German towns for the castle’s archives. In place of these originals in the collection, there are now photocopies.