My Dear Grace.

Thank you very much for your very interesting letter which I received from you when I was in Africa.

It was very kind of you to write me.  Your letter were dated 6/4-41.  I wrote you at once, but I don’t think you have got my letter because it was very difficult to get any letter through the censor that time.  I was interned a long time, had little and bad food.  The last three months before the American came, I was in a consentration camp 350 miles south of Oran.  It was a terrible place in the desert, sun and sand and of course very hot, so I was very glad to get out of it.  I was working for the American Navy for some time, but later as a Norwegian I had to join a Norwegian ship, and since then I have been sailing all about.  I am now onboard a Norwegian oil tanker.  We use to have 14 days in the Atlantic and two-three days in port, so we are almost always at sea.  But it is all the same to me.  I hope the war soon is over, so I can be able to send a letter home and get an answer without any German interference. 

You told me you were working in a Carnegie Public Library, but I suppose you had to quit the job for the benefit of war production, if so I think you will be able to get your job back again as soon as the war is over if you wish to.

I should like to visit you in Dell Rapids and uncle John too, but I have not got time enough to do so, I am probably going to pay off in an American port some time after Christmas, and then I will be glad to visit my friends (it would be another year and a half before he could finally go home).

My twin sister and I was born in 1918.  My sister is married and live in Norway.  My other sisters are older than I, except one.  She is 19 year old.  I have two brothers, both past thirty.

As you may know, my father passed away in February 1942, 62 year old (I think he’s mistaken here, Conrad died January 6-1943 as far as I know).  I have not been home since 1937.  I feel a little lonesome occasionally, but having plenty of work and much to learn, I am too much occupied to feel homesick, and find the life and my job very interesting.

I wrote your mother when I was in Philadelphia for some days ago, I hope she has got my letter.

We are now laying in New York only for a night.  When I get more time, I will write you a longer letter.  I would appreciate hearing from you and your family.  Wishing you the best of health, and complete happiness.

Very truly yours,

Odd Conrad Holm

M/T Thorshov. The Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission. New York. N.Y.