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Letter from Dad, Luther Murkins Winsor February 16th



Teheran, February 16th 1945

My Dearest Son, 
Your letter of February 1st with postmark February 3rd has just been received. I do appreciate such a letter, my boy. Written when you were fagged out, so to speak and at a time when you would have enjoyed relaxation with your thoughts, your newest picture of the little family & all. It brings renewed pleasure and satisfaction to me for I have assurance that you are OK, that you have faith in being able to pull thru safely, faith in the future and love and devotion to your family. 

After all my boy, you are better off for having real work to do. So many of our boys grow stale and sour with inactivity. They must find diversion and they are fairly driven to drink and lax living and all that goes with an idle life. I cannot be specific-but that is one of the greatest curses of war and its results. 

Hang on to yourself my boy, for this cursed thing will soon be over and you and we still have a lot of living to do when we finally go home. God hasten the day. 

I've been working with my hands as well as my head every day now for 18 days since I returned from the S. W. in a determined effort to build a diversion dam and flood control works here near headquarters where water for ancient city of Rey was diverted some thousands of 


years ago and where, ever since, water for irrigation has been diverted each spring. Never in all these long centuries have they had a permanent diversion. They have fought the floods each spring, placing boulders, willow baskets and gravel in the spring to turn what they needed as long as the spring was high and what they could get when it was low. Result much labor and much loss of water.

Now a humble Mormon sage brush engineer comes along and in less than three weeks builds a permanent structure that removes for all time the loss of water at the point of diversion and the laborious task of controlling the stream in terms of flood. Enclosed is a photo I just took of the work while it was underway. It is now about finished.

In addition I'm installing a water wheel turbine for power to generate an endless chain with buckets to carry sand and gravel to a gravel plant such as has never been seen in the east. The dirty aggregates and sand they use here is terrible and their concrete usually is rotten to the core.

Luther my boy, don't use up your spare energy writing long letters to me, only once in a while when you really want to tell me something special. Just a "V" mail note to say you are OK and to pass along any special word you have. I eat up every word and mark but I can wait for details until we are together around the old campfire out in our own hills. I am feeling OK again after a long siege of cold. I worked it off.
Lovingly-Dad

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