Tom Valli, left, holds a box of letters that had been sent to James E. Hoffman Jr. during World War II. He turned them over to James E. Hoffman III, Hoffman Jr.’s son, who is at right. Contributed photo.
James E. Hoffman III calls them “letters from heaven.” They’re a collection of letters, postcards and other items that had been sent to his father, James E. Hoffman Jr., while his father was stationed at Camp Carlisle, Pa., during World War II.
Hoffman III, of Brookfield, recently received the letters from Tom Valli, who had had them since 1990. Hoffman did not know they existed before Valli reached out to him.
While Hoffman III calls it a miracle that he now possesses the letters, there is a very earthbound story as to how he acquired them.
By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Hoffman Jr. had graduated from Brookfield High School and Ohio State University with a political science degree. He had two years of law school under his belt at OSU but needed money to complete his studies and had returned home to Sharpsville, where his parents were living, to work at General American in Masury and National Malleable Castings Co. in Sharon.
When Pearl Harbor was attacked, “He didn’t have a student deferment because he wasn’t in school,” Hoffman III said. “He knew it (draft) was coming, so he enlisted.”
Hoffman Jr. enlisted in the army on April 25, 1942, in Erie, and attended basic training at Camp Lee, Va.
Hoffman Jr. asked to serve in the medical health services, which treated wounded soldiers on the battlefield and transported them elsewhere for additional care. He received his medical training at Camp Carlisle, graduating from there Jan. 23, 1943.
His next assignment was to Camp Crowder in Missouri. Somehow, the letters, postmarked between May 9 and 25, 1942, got left behind. Hoffman III can’t imagine that his father, who was very organized, would willfully abandon them.
Hoffman Jr. received training in the California desert in preparation for deployment to North Africa. However, the allies defeated the Axis powers in Africa before he could be deployed, and he was assigned to several places in the United States, never serving overseas.
After his military service, Hoffman Jr. finished law school and went onto a distinguished law career in Brookfield, serving briefly as a district court judge. He participated in numerous community service and economic development activities.
Fast forward to 1990. Valli, who had a college degree in geology, got a job with a company that inspects military installations, often in anticipation of renovation or demolition.
“Back then, I was a little skinny guy so I would do the attic spaces and crawl spaces and difficult access places,” Valli said.
He was in a billeting building at Camp Carlisle – now Fort Carlisle – and discovered an access hatch in the ceiling. He climbed up into the attic space and evaluated it for material that might have to disposed of when he came upon a shoe box with letters in them. When he showed the letters to others at the company, no one was interested in them, so he asked to take them home.
Valli said his father had served in World War II and he grew up in a neighborhood with lots of veterans, so he sensed the letters would be important to someone. He put the box in a closet and forgot about them.
Thirty-five years later, Valli is living in Chippewa, Pa., winding down a career that included an extended stay overseas, and he’s looking to retire and downsize. He came across the shoe box.
“I started thinking, I wonder if I could find this person?” Valli said. “It’s better in their hands than mine. I thought it’d be important to get it back to the family.”
Using the internet, he couldn’t come across any useful information based on the names and places in the letters.
“Eventually, I reached out to my sister-in-law (Dawnlyn Valli),” he said. “She’s familiar with the Ancestry.com stuff.”
Dawnlyn found a copy of Hoffman Jr.’s enlistment papers, his birthdate and a newspaper clipping that mentioned that Hoffman Jr. had a son.
Valli tried to call Hoffman III’s law office, only to learn that it had been closed, but found his home address and sent him a letter. At the same time, Dawnlyn sent an email to Hoffman III via Ancestry. Hoffman III received the email first, on Oct. 19 and was skeptical. He has a public Ancestry account and knew certain documents were available online.
“My first thought is, if it’s too good to be true, it can’t be,” he said, wondering how much money they were seeking.
However, he decided to respond and, after a couple of days of emails, he was convinced Valli had items that had belonged to his father. They chose a restaurant in Columbiana, about half way between their homes, to meet, and Valli handed over the items, without charge.
There are about a dozen letters from Hoffman Jr.’s parents, siblings and friends, two postcards from an aunt, literature from historical sites he had visited and documentation related to a radio his mom had sent him for his birthday.
Valli said he particularly enjoyed a letter from Hoffman III’s mom, Margaret Esselburn, who had met Hoffman Jr. through her Kent State University roommate, Alice Chiverton, who was dating Hoffman Jr.’s cousin and best friend, Carl Hoffman.
“You could tell they weren’t dating at the time but there was some sort of connection,” Valli said. “Her letters were just chock full of writing, every surface of the page was covered with writing.”
Hoffman Jr. and Esselburn were married in January 1944.
Hoffman Jr. was the romantic sounding board between Chiverton and Carl Hoffman. They each wrote him saying how much they cared about the other, but Carl said he was afraid to tell Alice that he loved her, while Alice detailed how other dates she went on didn’t stack up to the time she had spent with Carl.
Valli said it was an honor to finally pass on the letters to Hoffman Jr.’s family.
“It was really neat to be able to find the family and they’re right here, not even an hour from my house,” Valli said. “What’s the chances of that? Just a lot of unique things that add up to a fun story.”
Hoffman III, who has shared the letters with his sisters and other family members, said he’s glad to have them.
“It’s heartwarming to come across those,” Hoffman III said.
