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Faith and Family

Events of the early 1940s reverberated across the globe and through the young Boelkins family in West Michigan. Nazi Germany ravaged Europe and western Russia, and by 1941, England was under threat of invasion. At the same time, Imperial Japan overtook the Pacific and attacked Pearl Harbor, effectively bringing the United States into World War II. Volunteers joined the American military effort en masse, including a thirty-three-year-old surgeon in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dr. Richard C. 鈥淒ick鈥� Boelkins. With his wife Jean and their young son, they relocated to Texas and prepared for war as part of the US Army鈥檚 4th Medical Auxiliary.

Told through selections from the 227 letters Dick wrote to his wife Jean while serving as a field surgeon in Europe from 1944 to 1945, this book is a personal story of how faith and family supported a husband and father on the front lines of World War II. His letters chronicle long hours of surgery in field and evacuation hospitals amidst the devastation of war, revealing the challenges of living in foxholes, operating on devastating wounds, suffering cold and wet weather, and enduring fear, homesickness and anxiety while awaiting the birth of his third child. He shares the pain of watching young soldiers suffer and die, losing close members of his surgery team, and fighting an undiagnosed kidney disease that almost took his life. The letters also reveal the critical importance of mail from Jean and many family members and friends in sustaining his morale.

Dr. Boelkins鈥� legacy is embodied in these letters: faithful to his God and family before, during, and after the war and practicing medicine with skill, humility, and humanity. This book shares that legacy with his family and everyone who appreciates the courage and resolution of the unheralded patriots who are the foundation of the Greatest Generation.