There is serendipity in the fact that Marie Solzan makes her home in the Lowry neighborhood, site of the former Lowry Air Force Base.
Solzan, who grew up in Memphis, Tenn., found a historical treasure trove in her grandmother’s attic — more than 200 letters and telegrams, most sent by her great-uncle, that describe life and death in the skies over Europe during World War I.
WATCH: World War I letters discovered in a grandmother’s attic
“This is important, a series of family letters that is not common. … They didn’t necessarily keep letters like this, and to have been in a trunk in an attic all this time is not common at all,” said Kathleen Madigan, a neighbor who formerly worked for the National Park Service’s heritage preservation division.
Madigan is helping Solzan curate and research the collection.
Solzan first found the letters, along with pictures and other memorabilia, when she was a 10-year-old exploring the attic. She came upon several steamer trunks, she said.
Twelve years later, her grandmother died, and she got the trunks.
“They had been up there for 50 years, they’re covered in mold, they’re disgusting and I go home … and start unpacking this trunk, which is crammed full of letters, checkbooks, handwritten 19th-century insurance policies.”
Most of the letters are from her great-uncle M.E. Carter Jr. He described for his family in Memphis his life — and the lives and deaths of his friends and other pilots — in detailed letters that vividly portray the early days of aviation.
Carter joined the U.S. Air Service shortly after America entered the war on April 6, 1917.
Among those who joined him was William Howard Stovall, his sister’s husband and Solzan’s grandfather, who went on to become a WWI flying ace credited with six confirmed aerial victories, according to the Aerodrome, a website dedicated to WWI aces and aircraft.
Carter taught fledgling fliers at a base outside Paris, and later became the chief of transfer, making him responsible for sending pilots and planes to the frontlines, Solzan said.
When he assigned Stovall and another friend to a battle-ready squadron, “He writes to his mother that he cried when he parted with them, because he knew he was likely sending them to their death,” Solzan said.
He describes learning to fly in “flying coffins,” planes loaded with gasoline and constructed of wood covered in cotton canvas that was shellacked with a highly flammable lacquer. Pilots often carried a gun to kill themselves if they were shot down rather than risk burning to death.
Such documentation can be invaluable to historians, Madigan said.
“So many times we have the stories of the people in charge or the inventors, but we don’t necessarily have the stories of those who used it day to day,” Madigan said.
The war was hard on Carter, Solzan said. He died in 1941 an alcoholic and probably had post-traumatic stress disorder, she said.
Stovall went on to be deputy chief of staff for personnel for the Eighth Air Force in Britain during WWII.
Solzan hopes to develop a book and documentary based on the letters. She thinks they could provide the underpinnings for a mini-series or film. Ultimately, she said, the collection belongs in an archive where scholars have access to them.
She added: “World War I is so under researched that for scholars to have information like this is really important.”
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dpmcghee
Updated May 25, 2015 at 10:00 a.m.: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Marie Solzan’s name.
