Searching for Harold

For a family separated by war but united through mail, what happens if the letters stop? When the author inherits his father’s genealogical archives, he discovers a family waiting to be witnessed. Through letters written between 1934 and 1948, the Carletons and Wattses of the American South come fully to life, right up to the moment Harold Carleton, the youngest of nine siblings, stops writing.Harold is in Europe with one of his brothers; another is in the jungles of the Pacific islands; one nephew is training pilots in Texas and another wants to leave school and join the fight.At home, those left behind face a quieter battle against rationing, anxiety, and the suffocating weight of the unknown. The mailbox becomes a lifeline; it’s the only link to the boys they love. Every letter feels like a victory; every silence, a haunting threat. Which will arrive next: the US Post Office with a treasured letter, or Western Union with a dreaded telegram?Inside these pages, you’ll discover:True stories of WWII told in the voices of those who lived themWartime correspondence that captures American home front history as it happenedSoldiers’ lives rendered in their own words, from stateside training to Europe and the PacificMilitary history biographies uncovered through documented family archivesHow a genealogical memoir composed of primary-source World War II history can recover a family’s past that had been erased through decades of silenceSearching for Harold is the poignant, intimate portrait of a family caught in the crosswinds of history’s greatest conflict, told through the letters that kept their hopes alive. 6