the donation of a unique collection of letters to lipscomb’s beaman library has sparked new national interest in a forgotten chapter of tennessee’s and america’s history this summer.
during world war ii, a german prisoner of war camp was located in the middle tennessee town of lawrenceburg, tenn. the 300 or so prisoners housed there were contracted out to local farms as day laborers, and many of them got to know the locals quite well. when the war ended and the pows went home to germany, they wrote letters to their american friends.
one lawrenceburg family, the brocks, kept the letters, and in the 1980s, one of their descendants found more than 350 letters stuffed in a corn flakes box. curtis peters, an in-law in the brock family and president of the lawrenceburg historical society, kept the letters and made presentations on them for many years.
then last year, peters learned of 世界杯2022预选赛录像回放
through a personal connection with one of lipscomb’s history professors and decided to donate the letters to the beaman library archives. the family wanted the stribling brock letters collection to be housed at a faith-based university and to be available for the public to enjoy and for researchers to advance knowledge of this aspect of tennessee history.
this summer, lipscomb faculty and students have been working to catalog and translate the letters. a portion of the collection will be unveiled to the public on sept. 10, at a beaman library event celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of world war ii.
the donation of the letters to lipscomb resulted in nationwide media coverage as well as media stories in europe. the collection was featured on nbc nightly news on sunday, aug. 9.