Three envelopes from Charlie to Terrie — Marietta, Fort Jackson, and Vietnam, 1969–1971

Three surviving envelopes from Charlie’s letters to Terrie, spanning the arc from college through basic training to Vietnam. The letters themselves are transcribed in the Vietnam letters collection; these three envelopes have not been matched to specific letters in that collection, and are catalogued here on their own for the addresses, units, and postmarks they carry.

1. Fort Jackson, South Carolina — postmarked 13 April 1970

Return address: CHARLES EESLEY · C-11-3 · 4TH PLATOON · Ft. Jackson, S.C. 29207. Addressed to Miss Terrie Wildermuth, 13008 Ingleside Dr., Beltsville, MD. 20705. Franked with a 6¢ Franklin D. Roosevelt stamp, postmarked Columbia, S.C., 13 APR 1970.

This is Charlie in basic training — company C-11-3, fourth platoon — in the spring before deployment. It is close in date to his letter of 12 April 1970, written while he was waiting on his orders, but the envelope has not been confirmed as that letter’s.

2. Vietnam — 101st Airborne Division, marked 3/4/71

Return address: SP4 Charles Eesley · 301 40 2843 · HHC 101st Abn Div · Chief of Staff · APO SF 96383. Addressed to Miss Terrie Wildermuth, 4706 Knox Rd — Apt #3, College Park, Maryland 20740. In place of a stamp, the corner is marked “FREE” — the free-mail privilege for service members in a combat zone — and dated 3/4/71.

Two details here are new to the archive in this form: Charlie’s service number (301 40 2843), and his posting to the Chief of Staff section, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 101st Airborne Division — the rear-area assignment he moved into after the field, at the rank of SP4. Terrie has by now moved from her parents’ house in Beltsville to an apartment on Knox Road in College Park, beside the University of Maryland.

3. Marietta, Ohio — 1969

Addressed to Miss Terry Wildermuth, 13008 Ingleside Dr., Beltsville, Maryland 20705 — her name spelled here with a y. Franked with two 3¢ Washington stamps and postmarked Marietta, Ohio 45750, 1969; no return address on the face.

This is the earliest of the three and the only pre-Army one: Charlie writing from Marietta during his college years, to Terrie at her parents’ house. It belongs with the 1969 letters but has not been matched to a particular one.

The three addresses, in order

The envelopes trace both of them at once — Charlie moving Marietta → Fort Jackson → Vietnam, and Terrie moving her parents’ house in Beltsville → her own apartment in College Park. The correspondence that runs across those moves is the Vietnam letters; these are the covers that carried it.

Source: Terrie’s kept correspondence, in Chuck’s keeping; photographed 2026. The pairing of each envelope to a specific letter is unresolved.