The girlfriend was so thrilled with her boyfriend's romantic gesture that Blackburn claims he "ate better than the officers after that!"īlackburn's artistry managed to bring him the assignments he wanted as well. One day, the cook asked Blackburn if he would make a valentine card for his girlfriend. He soon found himself drawing cards for his fellow servicemen's sweethearts back home - a task which had him drawing two or three cards a day. It seemed that when a letter from his artistic son would arrive at the local post office, the workers would hand it around for everyone to see, thus making his son's letters arrive much later than normal.īack on the base, word quickly spread through the barracks that Blackie was an artist. ![]() "He didn't want to cover up the drawings! He asked that I leave room for his stamp."īack in Berlin, Blackburn's father was getting irritated as well. ![]() "The mail room censor came up to me after several months of my envelopes and was mad because he couldn't fit his stamp anywhere on the envelope," Blackburn says. Once through boot camp, Blackburn's work began to get noticed by more than his family. On a whim, Blackburn, who now lives in North Eastham, decorated the handmade envelopes with cartoons of himself in various, unromantic jobs - a stress-relieving pursuit that he would continue throughout the war. While in boot camp at Paris Island, S.C., he wrote to his parents and sister back in Connecticut. In 1943, at 17, Blackburn had attended high school and a vocational school for art in Berlin, Conn. That decision not only would prove to maintain his humor, but may have saved his life. Joseph "Blackie" Blackburn took colored pencils with him when he enlisted in the Marines during World War II. During World War II, envelopes were the canvas for an artisitic marine far from home
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