Letters from King Prior to Helen Prior. Letters contain information about King’s activities. Letter dated April 14 talks about FDR’s death. Letter dated April 24 talks about living in a German castle (see email packet in Box 3/F. 16). Letter dated May 2 states that King “heard the good news of the fall of Berlin; that coupled with the German announcement of the death of Hitler makes things look pretty good for us.” Letter dated May 3 states “war news is good today with the unconditional surrender of Germany.”, 1945 Mar 17-May 5

File — Box: 3, Folder: 2

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.