The Philippines 1905 - 1916 “My Dearest Junie” Letters of William E. Cobey

William E. Cobey is among the first of a group of Americans of the twentieth century that felt the need to serve the needs of other people. He joined an American group of "volunteers" who set off to serve very impoverished nations. It later helped spark the initiative that became "The Peace Corps." William E, Cobey was only 24 years old in 1905 when he started on this arduous adventure. He was a recent graduate of The College of the Holy Cross in 1902. In here, he tells a revealing story of what it was like to be an early 20th Century American working as an ex-patriot overseas. It's a story of his life in the Philippines from his own works. They were told through letters that he is writing to his family and sending to his beloved sister, Junie. He tells his story with an accomplished tone of storytelling. His linguistic vocabulary and his worldly experiences were broadening and he used them to his advantage in his prose and with the unique ability to capture his reader. Younger than he, Junie, lives halfway around the world in Hartford, Connecticut. Junie, the featured recipient and letter collector, must have been jumping for joy to receive any one of the letters from her away-from-home-big-brother, who at the time, was a distant adventurer in the Philippines. These were the days when the postal service was the most effective way to communicate. As a realized bonus, the letters are now part of his own record of his contributions to the future economic growth of the Philippine Islands. The heartfelt handwritten letters and the all-to-formal typewritten letters were transcribed for the reader's easy reading. Facsimiles of the original letters are featured for you to appreciate his actual written words. The world was in turmoil. His time was the arrival of World War I and the coming of World War II. At the time of his first sailing, the Russo-Japanese War (World War 0) was just concluding.